My first thought was to lie down again, but the sight of a large parchment across which his arms were sprawled piqued my curiosity, and I didn't debate long with myself before I was out of bed and scanning a sheet of beautiful black script, but written in a language I didn't understand. And then a word or two told me it was Latin, but the meaning was quite dark to me, as my father hadn't so far succeeded in making much of a scholar of me. There were a few odd papers too with tracings on them like plans, some scored through, and some mere fragmentary sketches; but they conveyed little to me, half hidden as they were by my father's arms. I could see they were his own work, and by occasional underlined passages in the manuscript, and by odd notes jotted in the margin, I guessed he had been drawing up plans according to some mysterious instructions in the parchment. The manuscript looked to me exceedingly old and frail. The edges were frayed and tattered, and here and there decayed pieces had fallen from the text itself. But it was obvious that great pains had been taken to preserve and restore it, and where the old ink was faint the words had been written over afresh. But it seemed to me that the task of deciphering it must be no easy one. A glimmering of an idea flittered through my mind, that it was somehow on account of this manuscript that my father wanted me to learn Latin. All these considerations were merely momentary, for a glance or two showed me the whole picture there, and something of its meaning; and I began to understand what the mystery was which kept my father from his bed, though of course I couldn't guess at the contents of the ancient script. I was for creeping back to bed again unheeded, but stopped short at my father's open eyes fixed upon me. He had awakened without a sound or a stir, and was watching me. I half wondered whether he would be angry, but with something of the matter-of-factness with which he had accepted my discovery of the Smugglers' Tunnel he said, almost in the same words, "Very well, Tommy, I'll show you." Very carefully he turned a page or two of the manuscript, and the dry old stuff crackled beneath his fingers. "It's an old, old story," he began, "and I'll tell it to you some day. But this is what is troubling me." He folded a page back, and here instead of writing was an elaborate diagram; but the edges of this page were particularly worn, as though by frequent use, and part of the diagram was missing. "Now, Tommy," said my father, drawing the lamp up close, "you've got good eyes. What do you make of this?" He pointed with his pencil to the very spot where the diagram faded from the frayed edge. I stooped over the table and strained my eyes to the sheet. What I saw looked to me like a long passage, but just at the crucial point where something important seemed to be indicated the impression was faded and blurred. "Looks like a hole here," I said at last. "Yes, yes," said my father eagerly.