"No doubt," I ventured to reply, "but what interest would he have in
thus hiding so marvellous a discovery?"

"Why? Why? How can I tell? Did not Galileo do the same by Saturn? We
shall see. I will get at the secret of this document, and I will
neither sleep nor eat until I have found it out."

My comment on this was a half-suppressed "Oh!"

"Nor you either, Axel," he added.

"The deuce!" said I to myself; "then it is lucky I have eaten two
dinners to-day!"

"First of all we must find out the key to this cipher; that cannot be
difficult."

At these words I quickly raised my head; but my uncle went on
soliloquising.

"There's nothing easier. In this document there are a hundred and
thirty-two letters, viz., seventy-seven consonants and fifty-five
vowels. This is the proportion found in southern languages, whilst
northern tongues are much richer in consonants; therefore this is in
a southern language."

These were very fair conclusions, I thought.

"But what language is it?"