_Fourscore--feet--deep--well--north_: and by degrees exulting gladness gave way to bewilderment and disquiet of spirit, and in the gusts of wind I heard Blackbeard himself laughing and mocking me for thinking I had found his treasure.

Still I read and re-read it, juggling with the words and turning them about to squeeze new meaning from them.
'Fourscore feet deep _in the north well_,'-- 'fourscore feet deep in the well _to north_'-- 'fourscore feet _north of the deep well_,'-- so the words went round and round in my head, till I was tired and giddy, and fell unawares asleep.
It was daylight when I awoke, and the wind had fallen, though I could still hear the thunder of the swell against the rock-face down below.

The fire was yet burning, and by it sat Elzevir, cooking something in the pot.

He looked fresh and keen, like a man risen from a long night's sleep, rather than one who had spent the hours of darkness in struggling against a gale, and must afterwards remain watching because, forsooth, the sentinel sleeps.
He spoke as soon as he saw that I was awake, laughing and saying: 'How goes the night, Watchman?
This is the second time that I have caught thee napping, and didst sleep so sound it might have taken a cold pistol's lips against thy forehead to awake thee.' I was too full of my story even to beg his pardon, but began at once to tell him what had happened; and how, by following the hint that Ratsey dropped, I had made out, as I thought, a secret meaning in these verses.
Elzevir heard me patiently, and with more show of interest towards the end; and then took the parchment in his hands, reading it carefully, and checking the errors of numbering by the help of the red prayer-book.
'I believe thou art right,' he said at length; 'for why should the figures all be false if there is no hidden trickery in it?
If't had been one or two were wrong, I would have said some priest had copied them in error; for priests are thriftless folk, and had as lief set a thing down wrong as right; but with all wrong there is no room for chance.

So if he means it, let us see what 'tis he means.