Calico Classics Illustrated: Journey to the Center of the Earth
There is some wonderful secret in this message I must discover what it is Sit down and write my uncle ordered I quickly obeyed I will substitute the runic letters with letters from our alphabet my uncle said I wrote the letters of each of the twenty-one words It made no sense to me mm rnlls esruel unteief sgtssmf kt samn atrateS emtnaeI nuaect Atvaar nscrc eeutul ccdrmi dt iac oseibo seecJde niedrke Saodrrn rrilSa ieaabs frantu KediiY I had barely fi nish ed when my uncle snatched the paper from my hands to examine it I should like to know what it means he said No matter how I looked at it I could not tell him the meaning 8
It is like a cryptograph he said A puzzle The book and the parchment are written in different hands The parchment is newer than the book by 200 years I agreed that his conclusion was logical The owner of the book must have written these mysterious letters my uncle said But who was he Maybe it is written in the book Professor Von Hardwigg took a powerful magnifying glass and examined the book A small blot of ink old and diffi cult to read was on the fl yleaf My uncle was fi nally able to make out some letters With a shout of joy my uncle cried Arne Saknussemm He explained That is the name of an important and famous Icelandic professor Maybe he has hidden some surprising invention on the parchment My uncle turned to me Neither of us will eat or sleep until I discover its secret I did not like the sound of this We tried many languages and worked for hours My 9
uncle believed that Saknussemm had written his message in Latin But we could fi nd no proper order of the letters that provided any known Latin words My uncle tried reading the cryptograph in different ways He asked me to write down one attempt mmessunkaSenrA icefdoK segnittamurtn ecertserrette rotaivsadua ednecsedsadne lacartniiilrJsiratracSarbmutabiledmek meretarcsilucoYsleffenSnI I forced myself not to laugh My uncle became angry struck the table with his fi st and ran out of the house leaving me alone with the strange lettering 10
2 The Astounding Discovery While I waited for my uncle I began some of my usual work of translation The parchment drove me crazy with its mix of English Latin Hebrew and even French This thing was monstrous It was very hot in the room I fanned myself with the horrible piece of paper As I waved it in front of my face I saw the back and then the front of the puzzle Imagine my surprise when I saw that the ink had gone through and revealed the Latin words craterem and terrestre Like a fl ash of lightning the secret was revealed I only had to read it backward to understand the words But as I read more horrors possessed me Could it be true Was it possible that a man had dared to do what 11
