I chuckled over that to myself, rubbing my hands, and read it through again: Fourscore--feet--deep--well--north.
'Twas all so simple, and the word in the fourth verse 'well' and not 'vale' or 'pool' as I had stuck at so often in trying to unriddle it.

How was it I had not guessed as much before?
and here was something to tell Elzevir when he came back, that the clue was found to the cipher, and the secret out.

I would not reveal it all at once, but tease him by making him guess, and at last tell him everything, and we would set to work at once to make ourselves rich men.

And then I thought once more of Grace, and how the laugh would be on my side now, for all Master Ratsey's banter about her being rich and me being poor! Fourscore--feet-deep--well--north.
I read it again, and somehow it was this time a little less dear, and I fell to thinking what it was exactly that I should tell Elzevir, and how we were to get to work to find the treasure.

'Twas hid in a _well_--that was plain enough, but in what well ?--and what did 'north' mean?
Was it the _north well,_ or to _north of the well_--or, was it fourscore feet _north_ of the _deep well_?
I stared at the verses as if the ink would change colour and show some other sense, and then a veil seemed drawn across the writing, and the meaning to slip away, and be as far as ever from my grasp.