Page:The Master of Mysteries (1912).djvu/186

 Wouldn't you be able to tell instantly that he was ignorant of the English language? It's the same here. Any one who is used to writing Greek would form the letters easily and swiftly; would write, in short, a pure cursive hand. These Greek letters here are all laboriously copied from some school-book or dictionary."

"Well, who wrote it?"

"My dear Valeska," said Astro soberly, "the infinitesimal vibrations from this locket will, if I absorb myself in contemplation, set up sympathetic waves in my own aura. I am not yet ready to go into a psychic trance. Let us first read the message. It is ridiculously simple. I will first separate the message into words, for what here appears to be a set of words is merely letters run together with a few false spaces between them in order to baffle the first glance.

He took a pad of paper and wrote out the following in Greek characters:

Δανσ λε γαρθεν, ανδεοϛονσ λε ροϛε βνχ, λε πλνϛ νεαλ λε πομμιερ

When he had finished he looked up at her. "You surely know the Greek alphabet, at least?"

"Of course I know that much. We used to use it in boarding-school to write secret messages in. What girl that's ever had a 'frat' boy for a beau doesn't know the Greek alphabet?"

"Then this should read easily. Kindly write it out, letter for letter."