over the interpretation of the cryptogram
before the conclusion of the passage upon which we were then engaged.
No sooner, therefore, were we fairly at sea than I devoted myself in
grim and serious earnest to my quest for the key that was to unlock the
secrets of the exasperating cipher. The document consisted, as the
reader will remember, entirely of long, unbroken rows of figures--with
the exception of a rather singular sketch in the midst of the text,
which I took to be a representation of the island whereon the treasure
was said to have been secreted, as viewed from certain bearings--and I
knew that these figures must stand in lieu of a certain arrangement of
the letters of the alphabet, forming words. I had early noted the
somewhat curious fact that there was but one solitary nought throughout
the document; but that only helped me so far as to render me morally
certain that the letters of the text could scarcely be represented by
units; and, taking this as my initial theory, I attempted every other
combination of numbers that either my ingenuity or my fancy could
suggest. In vain; I could hit upon no arrangement of numbers that, when
transposed into letters, would give me a single intelligible word,
either in English or any other language with which I had the slightest
acquaintance. I at length grew so thoroughly worried over the matter
that my nerves became sensibly affected; I turned irritable, and began
to suffer from repeated attacks of extreme anxiety and depression; my
appetite failed me, and I became a victim to the torment of insomnia.

In this condition of mind and body I one night retired to my cabin after
a day of petty worries, in which everything and everybody seemed to have
been at cross-purposes with me, and--utterly worn out with the prolonged
tension upon my nerves--ultimately subsided into a fitful, restless,
nightmare kind of slumber, during which I continued in my dreams the
researches upon which my thoughts had now been for nearly three weeks
concentrated. Over and over again did I seem to arrange upon paper an
experimental system of numbering the alphabet, in the hope of obtaining
some intelligible result; and at length, to my great astonishment and
inexpressible delight, methought I found one. In feverish haste I--
still in my dream--set to work upon the translation of the document, and
was progressing swimmingly, when a sharp rapping upon my state-room
door, and the steward's voice anno