Part 12 (1/2)

”Well--I shall mount it, in any case, though I have my doubts of his standing while I blow a few rocks through his person.”

When he went for a fresh supply of fruits he brought up a log some four or five feet in length, with a burned-off p.r.o.ng at its end. This he intended to prepare as a ”carriage” for the gun. He placed the p.r.o.nged end down in his fire, to burn out a niche for the little bra.s.s piece, which he cleaned of its mud then and there.

His preliminary work on the bit of ordnance was soon concluded. When his log had burned to a moderate depth, he removed it to a near-by rock and gouged the charred portions away. Into the hollow thus rudely formed, the breach of the gun loosely fitted, ready to be firmly bound in place.

But the day was done, and Elaine had spread their ”table,” to which Sidney was glad to repair.

He had mentioned nothing of the tube still fatly bulging his pocket.

Until he should first determine what the cylinder contained, he meant to arouse no unnecessary speculations in the breast of his companion.

How much she might yet have to know of the barque and the mummy chained in its cabin he could not determine to-night. That something sinister lurked behind the mystery which this and the two headless skeletons involved was his constantly growing conviction.

It was not until night was heavily down, and Elaine had crept gladly to the comfort of her cave, that Grenville produced the bra.s.s cylinder, and stirred up new flames of his fire.

Then, sitting alone in the ruddy glow, with a rock for a stool, and another before him for an anvil, he sc.r.a.ped all he could of the greenish oxidation from the cover of the tube, and tried, as before, to wrench it off. The stubborn parts remained solidly rusted together.

This he had apparently expected. For he took up a rock of convenient size and, gently beating the cylinder just below its union with the cover, he bent it slightly inward about its entire circ.u.mference, meanwhile pausing from time to time to thrust his knife between the cemented pieces and force them a little apart.

The tube was considerably mangled by this process, while the cover still adhered. In a final burst of impatience, Grenville thrust the battered cap in the crevice between two bowlders and wrenched it roughly away.

Then he turned the hollow tube to the light, revealing, within, the edge of some doc.u.ment, thick and loosely rolled. This he readily removed and straightened in his hands, placing the tube beneath his arm.

For a moment the parchment seemed, despite the firelight upon it, a mere blank square, of leathery texture and weight. Then he fancied he saw upon its surface some manner of writing, or signs.

He resumed his seat and held the thing to the fullest light of the flames. It was yellowish tan in color, a trifle stiff, and inclined to curl to the shape it had held so long. Grenville turned it over, so dim were the characters it bore. There was nothing, however, on its outer side, wherefore he bent more closely towards his wavering light above such signs as he could finally discern.

Perhaps the fact that he began by expecting to find some ordinary map, or printed or written characters, for a short time baffled his wits.

Howbeit, he began at length to discover the fact that a few large signs or hieroglyphics had been rudely sketched upon the parchment. When this discovery was finally confirmed, he had still considerable difficulty in tracing the lines that comprised these singular designs.

The firelight cast dark shadows in certain crease-like traceries that folds in the substance had formed. It was not until he presently managed to discriminate between these mere wrinkles and the ”writing,”

that he made the slightest progress. His eyes at last became more keen to follow the artist's meaning. With his stub of a pencil, on a whittled bit of wood, he began to copy what he ”read.”

The result was, crudely, this:

[Ill.u.s.tration: parchment with signs and hieroglyphics]

It was not a map; it could hardly be a message--unless expressed in some short-hand system heretofore unknown--yet it must at some time or other have been accounted important to have been so elaborately preserved.

Grenville turned it upside down, compared his copy with the original repeatedly, and then examined the parchment with most minute particularity in search of some smaller writing to explain these mysterious signs.

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 t.i.tle 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 replenis.h.i.+ng 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.