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Oviedo says that between his seventieth year, which was his age when he came to America, and his eighty-sixth year, when he died, the infamous Pedrarias caused more than two million Indians to be put to death, besides a numerous lot of his own countrymen. If we lop off two ciphers, the record is still bad enough.
"The seignors," he said, "declare at their dinner parties that I wish to make them subject to the absolute despotism of your Majesty. In point of fact, however, they really exercise a great deal more power than the governors of particular provinces ever did before; and it lacks but little that Madame and your Majesty should become mere ciphers, while the grandees monopolize the whole power.
The reason is immensely plain. The British were all embodied and firm as a rock of granite; the Carolinians were scattered over the country loose as a rope of sand: the British all well armed and disciplined, moved in dreadful harmony, giving their fire like a volcano; the Carolinians, with no other than birding pieces, and strangers to the art of war, were comparatively feeble, as a forest of glow-worms: the British, though but units in number, were so artfully arranged that they told for myriads; while, for lack of unity, the Carolinians, though numerous as myriads, passed only for ciphers.
"I have an elementary idea that to unravel them you work from the most frequently recurring letter; E, isn't it?" "That's right," said Foyle. "But there are other ciphers where that system won't work. Mind you, I don't pose as an expert. If I had a cipher to unravel, I should go to a man who had specialised in them, exactly as I should go to a doctor on a medical question.
"There's San Quentin, to start in with," said the captain; "and suppose you clear the penitentiary, there's the nasty taste in the mouth. The figure's big enough to make bad trouble, but it's not big enough to be picturesque and I should guess a man always feels kind of small who has sold himself under six ciphers.
"Monotonous indeed, I should imagine," she agreed. "You spend your time reading other people's letters, do you not, just to be sure that there are no communications from the enemy?" "Precisely," he assented. "We discover ciphers and all sorts of things." "What brainy people you must be!" "We are, most of us." "Do you do anything else?" "Well, I've given up censoring for the present," he confided.
There must have been some casualties on the other side, for Johnny was reputed to be very painstaking in his "gunplay," and the empty shells which lay scattered on the floor did not stand for as many ciphers, of that his foreman was positive.
"Yes, there are the arms of Arestino, with the ciphers of the Countess, G. A. Giulia Arestino a very pretty name, by my troth! Ah, how the stones sparkle!" he cried, as he opened the case. "And the inventory is complete, just as it was described to me by her ladyship.
Thus, in every computation of the number of the enemy's forces, or of the Indian allies who joined the Spaniards in their contest with the Aztecs, Mr. Wilson "takes the liberty," to use his own phrase, of "dropping" one or more ciphers from the amount. This mode of adapting the narrative to his own conceptions he calls "reducing it to reality."
Why did you undertake that very laborious task you mention? 'Tis certain I have a great pleasure in spending money, but not when it is accompanied with the unpleasant reflection of sacrificing your health to the pursuit. Theo. is much better; she writes and ciphers from five in the morning to eight, and also the same hours in the evening.
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