"He had a motive, I warrant, and that a powerful one. I wish, Miroslav, you had secured the volume in time. Æschylus, Æschylus," repeated Zabern, thoughtfully. "My classical scholarship has long since evaporated, but if I remember rightly," he added, his countenance suddenly lighting up with a new idea, "Æschylus wrote a play called 'The Furies.'" "True, marshal," replied Paul. "'The Eumenides' or 'The Furies.'" Zabern, with excitement gleaming in his face, drew Paul aside. "The clew to the cipher despatch!" he whispered. "The last words of our friend Trevisa were '_the furies_'!" CHAPTER X THE DEED OF MICHAEL THE GUARDSMAN Accompanied by Zabern, Paul returned to the palace, where he was met by the court chamberlain, who conducted him to a fine suite of apartments, which by the special command of the princess were assigned to the new secretary. Supplied by Zabern with the cipher despatch, and by the court librarian with a copy of the "Eumenides," Paul, having first requested to be left to himself, sat down to work out the cryptographic problem. The paper given to him by the marshal was covered with rows of numerals, separated from each other by dots. The first eight numbers were as follows,-- 6 . 42 . 50 . 37 . 97 . 39 . 65 . 21 What did these figures represent? Certain words in the Greek play? If the sixth word of the "Eumenides," the forty-second, the fiftieth and so forth, were picked out and placed in immediate sequence, would they yield an intelligible sentence? He tried this method with the above numbers, but the result did not encourage him to proceed. It was not likely that the writer of the despatch intended to forward such intelligence as: "Of gods and a name a daughter of an art was seated into an oracle." On reflection Paul perceived the improbability that the numbers stood for words, inasmuch as the vocabulary of an ancient Greek poet would be insufficient to supply all the terms required by the usages of modern civilization, such, for example, as passport, banknote, or rifle. And to clench the matter, Paul observed that towards the end of the despatch there was the number, .8537. Now the total of words in the "Eumenides" falls considerably short of that sum. But if all the letters that composed the words of the play were numbered in consecutive order from Π the first to ς the last, then, indeed, the sum total would far exceed 8537. Paul resolved to test this theory, namely, that 6 was intended to mean the sixth letter in the "Eumenides," 42 the forty-second letter, etc. Great was his delight when he produced the following result,-- . 6 . 42 . 50. 37 . 97 . 39 . 65 . 21 . ν ι κ ο λ α ο ς Nicholas, the name of the reigning Czar! Proceeding in the same fashion, Paul found that the numbers following those which stood for Nicholas yielded the intelligible word ουναινεται, "assents." "To what does Nicholas assent?" murmured Paul.