When I had arrived at this result, and had tested its accuracy in
working, I felt in a position to experiment with my new knowledge on the
old number cipher. First I wrote out my method of reduction as a sort of
addendum to the paper which I had prepared for Marjory. Then I made a
key to cipher and one to de-cipher.[3] By this time the night was well
on and the grey of early morning was beginning to steal in by the edges
of the blinds; I was not sleepy, however; I was too much excited to
think of sleep, for the solving of the problem seemed almost within my
grasp. Excited to a state which almost frightened me by its intensity, I
got ready my copy of the number cipher and my newly prepared key. With
an effort which took me all my resolution I went on steadily writing
its proper letter under each combination without once looking back; for
I knew that even should some of the letters be misplaced in the key
the chance of recognising the right ones would be largely increased by
seeing a considerable number of letters together.
[3] See Appendix C.
Then I glanced over the whole and found that many of the symbols made up
letters. With such a basis to work on, the rest was only labour. A few
tentative efforts and I had corrected the key to agreement with some of
the combinations in the cipher.
I found, however, that only here and there were letters revealed; try
how I would, I could not piece out the intervening symbols. At last it
occurred to me that there might be in the paper two or more ciphers. On
trying to follow out the idea, it became apparent that there were at
least a quantity of impeding numbers scattered through the cipher. These
might be only put in to baffle pursuit, as I had surmised might be done
when I made the cipher; or they might have a more definite purpose. At
any rate they hampered my work, so I struck them out as I went along.
That I continued till I had exhausted the whole list of numbers in the
script.
When I looked back over the letters translated from the cipher thus
depleted, I found to my inexpressible joy that the sequence and sense
were almost complete. The translation read as follows:
"To read the history of the Trust use cipher of Fr. Bacon. The senses
and the figures are less worthy than the Trinity B. de E."
One step more and my work was done. I set the discarded numbers in
sequence on another sheet of paper, and found to my intense satisfaction
they formed an inner record readable by the same key. The "encloased"
words, to use Bacon's phrase, were:
"Treasure Cave cliff one and half degree Northe of East from outer
rock."
Then and then only did I feel tired. The sun was well up but I tumbled
into bed and was asleep in a moment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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