e when he died; and the things exist to this day, carefully
preserved, upstairs, together with every other article belonging to
Richard Saint Leger which happened to be on board the ship at that
time."

"And have those relics never been examined since my ancestor Hugh
abandoned the quest as hopeless?" I inquired.

"They may have been; I cannot say," answered my mother. "But I do not
believe that your dear father--or your grandfather either, for that
matter--ever thought it worth while to subject them to a thoroughly
exhaustive scrutiny. Your father, I know, always felt convinced, as you
do, that the documents had been either irretrievably lost, or
destroyed."

"Then if that be so," I exclaimed, "they shall have another thorough
overhaul from clew to earring before I am a day older. If, as you say,
every scrap of property belonging to Richard Saint Leger was carefully
collected and removed from the ship when she came home, and still
exists, stored away upstairs, why, the papers _must_ be there too; and
if they are I will find them, let them be hidden ever so carefully.
Whereabouts do you say these things are, mother?"

"In the west attic, where they have always been kept," answered my
mother. "Wait a few minutes, my dear boy, until I have found the keys
of the boxes, and we will make the search together."

CHAPTER TWO.

THE CRYPTOGRAM.

The west attic was a sort of lumber-room, in which was stored an
extensive collection of miscellaneous articles which had survived their
era of usefulness, but, either because they happened to be relics of
former Saint Legers, or for some other equally sufficient reason, were
deemed too valuable to be disposed of. The contents of this chamber
could scarcely have proved uninteresting, even to a stranger, for in
addition to several handsome pieces of out-of-date furniture--discarded
originally in favour of the more modern, substantial mahogany article,
and now permitted to remain in seclusion simply because of the _bizarre_
appearance they would present in conjunction with that same ponderous
product of the nineteenth-century cabinet-makers' taste--there were to
be found outlandish weapons, and curiosities of all kinds collected from
sundry out-of-the-way spots in all quarters of the globe, to say nothing
of the frayed and faded flags of silk or bunting that had been taken
from the enemy at various times by one or another of the Saint Legers--
each one of which represente