Now, prisoner No. 7 happened to know a good deal about magic squares, so
he worked out a scheme and naturally selected the method that was most
expeditious--that is, one involving the fewest possible moves from cell
to cell. But one man was a surly, obstinate fellow (quite unfit for the
society of his jovial companions), and he refused to move out of his
cell or take any part in the proceedings. But No. 7 was quite equal to
the emergency, and found that he could still do what was required in the
fewest possible moves without troubling the brute to leave his cell. The
puzzle is to show how he did it and, incidentally, to discover which
prisoner was so stupidly obstinate. Can you find the fellow?
402.--NINE JOLLY GAOL BIRDS.
[Illustration]
Shortly after the episode recorded in the last puzzle occurred, a ninth
prisoner was placed in the vacant cell, and the merry monarch then
offered them all complete liberty on the following strange conditions.
They were required so to rearrange themselves in the cells that their
numbers formed a magic square without their movements causing any two of
them ever to be in the same cell together, except that at the start one
man was allowed to be placed on the shoulders of another man, and thus
add their numbers together, and move as one man. For example, No. 8
might be placed on the shoulders of No. 2, and then they would move
about together as 10. The reader should seek first to solve the puzzle
in the fewest possible moves, and then see that the man who is burdened
has the least possible amount of work to do.
403.--THE SPANISH DUNGEON.
Not fifty miles from Cadiz stood in the middle ages a castle, all traces
of which have for centuries disappeared. Among other interesting
features, this castle contained a particularly unpleasant dungeon
divided into sixteen cells, all communicating with one another, as shown
in the illustration.
Now, the governor was a merry wight, and very fond of puzzles withal.
One day he went to the dungeon and said to the prisoners, "By my
halidame!" (or its equivalent in Spanish) "you shall all be set free if
you can solve this puzzle. You must so arrange yourselves in the sixteen
cells that the numbers on your backs shall form a magic square in which
every column, every row, and each of the two diagonals shall add up the
same. Only remember this: that in no case may two of you ever be
together in the same cell."
One of the prisoners, after working at the problem for two or three
days, with a piece of chalk, undertook to obtain the liberty of himself
and his fellow-prisoners if they would follow his directions and move
through the doorway from cell to cell in the order in which he should
call out their numbers.
[Illustration]
He succeeded in his attempt, and, what is more remarkable, it would seem
from the account of his method recorded in the ancient manuscript lying
before me, that he did so in the fewest possible moves. The reader is
asked to show what these moves were.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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