There was nothing further to be seen--at least by the light of his fire. Two of the symbols only did he recognize as ever having come to his attention before. These were, first, the lines like a series of M's, and second the oval, about a human figure. This last suggested unmistakably an ancient Egyptian cartouch--the name or title of a king. But containing one sign only, and that apparently representing a mummy, it puzzled the inventor no less than the pyramids and curves. That some either crude or crafty mind had combined this mixture of Egyptian and nondescript hieroglyphics with intent to reveal some secret message or information to other initiated beings, while concealing its import from all accidental beholders of the script, seemed to Grenville perfectly obvious. He sat for three hours replenishing the fire and goading his brain for a key to the puzzle, before it occurred to his mind at last the tube might contain the explanation. All this while he had held it beneath his arm, hard pressed against his body. As he peered down its dark interior once more, he likewise thrust in his fingers. It was they that discovered and fastened upon another sheet of something he had missed. This clung so close to the tube's metal walls he wetted his finger to remove it. The light then shone opaquely through its substance. It was ordinary foolscap paper, the half of a sheet, gone yellowish with age, but otherwise very well preserved. It was covered with roughly scrawled characters. Grenville glanced it through--and irrelevantly longed for a pipe. He felt he should like some good tobacco to assist in the puzzle's solution. He felt convinced, however, that a crude example of the simplest, most primitive cipher was contained upon the sheet. Should the words later prove to be in English he could finally read it all. He began to compare the recurrence of the various symbols at once, discovering that the sign in the form of a cross had been used no less than fourteen times, and was therefore almost certainly E. The next in importance was the figure 3, which he felt might be either A, or N, or S, since these, after E, are among the characters in English spelling most frequently employed. [Illustration: second message] On another clean chip of whittled wood he jotted down a few of the "words" with E's in each instance substituted for the crosses, and then began attempting to make clear sense by substituting A's, N's, and S's for the figure three, the figure one, and open squares, which, he found, had been often represented. It was a blind and tedious business. His fire burned low, in his absorption, and the midnight constellations marched past the zenith of the heavens before he finally realized the folly of his quest. "It's not a bit of good in the world, if I knew all about it," he finally confessed, "no matter what it means."