“i had a vision when the night was late.”
o
utside on the verandah a happy couple are sitting enjoying the hay-scented night wind as it blows in gentle gusts up the valley. dick and mollie are in that delightfully idiotic frame of mind known to the vulgar as “being spooney.” a great silver moon is shining down, as only a new zealand moon can shine, over the forest-clad hunua ranges in the distance and the neighbouring dewy pastures, where white-backed cattle can be seen resting for the night. the weird-voiced weka calls from the dark fern-hill on the right, and a couple of night-jars, called14 “more pork” by the colonists, from their peculiar cry, are proclaiming at intervals their carnivorous desires from the grand puriri tree by the stockyard. the youth and his betrothed are thinking of anything but the letter that is engaging the attention of the people indoors, and claude’s voice calling loudly upon dick is by no means a welcome sound.
“dick,” comes the summons again.
“here i am,” answers the owner of the one-syllabled cognomen. a parting squeeze, and he opens the door, and walks into the room rubbing his eyes.
“look here, dick,” says his friend, without raising his head from its bowed position over the letter upon the table. “here’s the summons i expected from the poor doctor. but it’s an enigma, i’m certain. i’m bothered if i can get at its meaning. read it, and find out its hidden signification, there’s a good fellow.”
dick’s face is generally a smiling placid one, but it is curious to notice how it changes, and becomes thoughtful and determined, as its owner catches sight of claude’s knitted brows and anxious, worried look.
both young fellows remain seated at the table in silence for a time, till claude somewhat sharply asks,—
“well, what do you make of it?”
“humph,” grunts his friend, “i think i’ll postpone my decision till to-morrow.” here he glances towards the verandah door, round the jamb of which flutters the white edge of a female’s dress. “the letter has a secret meaning i’ve little doubt. by-the-bye, i didn’t notice these figures before.”
“oh, i did, but i don’t think they are part of the letter.”
“you bet they are, claude. i wonder what i, cross, 15 six, nought, double l,—or is it h?—two, nought, can mean.”
claude leans forward, and seizing the other’s arm said, “i didn’t understand myself till you read them.”
“what do they mean then?”
“they are chemical symbols for iodine mixed with water. yes, i60h20 can mean nothing else.”
nothing more can the youths make out of the hidden meaning of the letter, if hidden meaning there was. before long all save claude retire to rest. that individual, believing that no sleep will come to him that night, sits in front of the fireplace, puzzling over what part iodine—if iodine is meant by the symbols—can play in unveiling the secret message that he believes lies in the letter. the kerosene lamp is turned down low; and the room, lit only from the great fireplace, becomes darker each minute. claude, having thought his active brain tired, is almost dropping off to sleep, when a sudden noise occurring in the room causes him to spring from his chair. a few shrill squeals in the dark corner of the room denote that the cause of the disturbance is the black cat te kooti, who has caught a mouse. half-a-dozen books have fallen from a shelf by the door, as evidence of her prowess. after several vain attempts to get the blind side of mr. mouse, the feline namesake of the maori patriot has employed a literary ambush to aid her in her plans, and with perfect success.
“confound the cat!” growls the awakened one; “get out of the room, you brute. wonderful, women always will have them in the house!”
having ejected the poor discomfited animal, who was making her way towards him to be congratulated,16 as usual, upon her prowess, claude turns to pick up the fallen books.
he has replaced all but two, when he stops short, for the feel of the smooth, cold cover of one of them now in his hand has made him thoughtful again. strange what a host of memories will crystallize into shape, one after another, in the brain, like the scintillating colours of the kaleidoscopes,—all arising from a simple keynote set buzzing by some slight passing circumstance. the book he held in his hand was a rough copy-book, so dilapidated that he had hesitated to pack it in his boxes when coming to the colony. in it, when a boy at school, he used to keep his notes upon the science lectures delivered once a fortnight to the assembled scholars. he remembered, in the semi-darkness, how fond he was of those lectures. he recollected, as if it had occurred but yesterday, that he was holding the book just in that position when, at the end of one lecture, he rose in exceeding trepidation to ask a question relative to biblical science that caused an awful hush to fall upon the schoolroom. there before his mind’s eye was the picture of the professor—who was small, and rather nervous amongst boys—as he blushed, stammered, and finally refused to answer “a foolish question,” to the delight of the boys, his pupils, and the glorification of claude in the playground by-and-by.
claude turns up the light, and glances through the pages covered with his long-past schoolboy scrawl. his whole attention is however presently directed to a note on a scribbled memorandum, which relates, as a fact, that iodine can be employed to determine whether certain infusoria, in water taken from a pond 17 or ditch, belong to the animal or vegetable kingdom. “the former,” says the note, “do not contain starch and remain unaltered in colour; the latter turn blue upon coming in contact with the iodine.”
just as the thoughts, roused by reading these words, are shaping themselves for action in claude’s brain, a step is heard on the stairs, the handle of the door rattles, and dick enters the room. he is in his pyjamahs, just as he has tumbled out of his bed.
“i guessed you’d be grinding away at your letter,” he roars, “so having had a bright idea i thought i would come and lend you a hand. cryptography’s the answer to the doctor’s puzzle, and your iodine will do something towards bringing the secret to light.”
“well, we’ll try, without wasting further time,” and claude, going out of the room, presently returns with a wine-glass half full of light-brown liquor.
“it’s mighty strange that you should have hit on what i believe is the answer to the puzzle just as i had done the same thing.” here the speaker pushes the manuscript book towards dick, who, sitting on the table, is cutting some tobacco for his pipe off a rough roll of maori-prepared leaf, called torori.
claude now pours some of the liquid, which contains about forty per cent. of iodine, into a plate, and proceeds with some hesitation to moisten a corner of the letter with the same. both young men watch the result breathlessly. there is no result. claude’s face clouds over with a disappointed look; but he nevertheless plunges half the sheet beneath the surface of the liquor.
18
as if by magic a change immediately begins to make itself apparent upon the surface of the paper.
at right angles to the pencil writing there gradually appears, after the manner of a photographic negative that is being developed, a series of parallel lines of disjointed dots and dashes, of a faint blue colour. these markings grow stronger each minute. the letter is wholly immersed, and presently withdrawn and held to the lamp. a hitherto hidden message, written in fairly distinct blue-green characters, is now visible. it runs as follows:—
“i am writing this with rice water. proceed at once to sydney, see winze and clinskeen, mining agents, pitt street. there await you valuable papers. you can trust winze entirely. find billy and take out miner’s right. come up here and follow directions map other side paper. billy does not know of reef. obliterate your tracks. you may be watched in sydney perhaps for other reasons. travel incognito.”
on the other side of the paper, which had appeared blank before the application of the iodine, a roughly-drawn map now appeared, ornamented with dotted lines and arrows. from it, it appeared that if a certain direction was taken—shown by a dotted line—from a point indicated by a cross, a creek would be crossed running through a gorge. this creek followed up for a mile would be found to cut through a region marked “the golden cliffs.”
“it is plain,” remarked claude after a few moments, “that i must first find billy.”
“that,” replied his friend, who was smoking off his excitement, “that is clearly an important preliminary.”
