And now he had done.
"Let us read!" he exclaimed.
And he read. Good heavens! what cacophony! The lines he had formed with the letters of his alphabet had no more sense in them that those of the document! It was another series of letters, and that was all. They formed no word; they had no value. In short, they were just as hieroglyphic.
"Confound the thing!" exclaimed Judge Jarriquez.
CHAPTER XIII
IS IT A MATTER OF FIGURES?
IT WAS SEVEN o'clock in the evening. Judge Jarriquez had all the time been absorbed in working at the puzzle--and was no further advanced--and had forgotten the time of repast and the time of repose, when there came a knock at his study door.
It was time. An hour later, and all the cerebral substance of the vexed magistrate would certainly have evaporated under th
