otels?'"

"I confess," replied Legrand, "that the matter still wears a serious
aspect, when regarded with a casual glance. My first endeavor was to
divide the sentence into the natural division intended by the
cryptographist."

"You mean, to punctuate it?"

"Something of that kind."

"But how was it possible to effect this?"

"I reflected that it had been a point with the writer to run his words
together without division, so as to increase the difficulty of
solution. Now, a not over-acute man, in pursuing such an object, would
be nearly certain to overdo the matter. When, in the course of his
composition, he arrived at a break in his subject which would naturally
require a pause, or a point, he would be exceedingly apt to run his
characters, at this place, more than usually close together. If you
will observe the MS., in the present instance, you will easily detect
five such cases of unusual crowding. Acting upon this hint, I made the
division thus:

"'_A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat--forty-one
degrees and thirteen minutes--northeast and by north--main branch
seventh limb east side--shoot from the left eye of the death's-head--a
bee-line from the tree through the shot fifty feet out._'"

"Even this division," said I, "leaves me still in the dark."

"It left me also in the dark," replied Legrand, "for a few days; during
which I made diligent inquiry in the neighborhood of Sullivan's Island,
for any building which went by name of the 'Bishop's Hotel'; for, of
course, I dropped the obsolete word 'hostel.' Gaining no information
on the subject, I was on the point of extending my sphere of search,
and proceeding in a more systematic manner, when, one morning, it
entered into my head, quite suddenly, that this 'Bishop's Hostel' might
have some reference to an old family, of the name of Bessop, which,
time out of mind, had held possession of an ancient manor-house, about
four miles to the northward of the island. I accordingly went over to
the plantation, and reinstituted my inquiries among the older negroes
of the place. At length one of the most aged of the women said that
she had heard of such a place as Bessop's Castle, and thought that she
could guide me to it, but that it was not a castle, nor a tavern, but a
high rock.

"I offered to pay her well for her trouble, and, after some demur, she
consented to accompany me to the spot. We found it without much
difficulty, when,