He showed me the parchment, on which he had transcribed jordan heels the message to big Latin letters: “Secretum finis Africae manus supra idolum age primum et septimum de quatuor.”
     “Is that clear?” he asked.
     “The hand over the idol works on the first and the seventh of the four ...” I repeated, shaking my head. “It isn’t clear at all!”
     “I know. First of all we have to know what Venantius meant by ‘idolum.’ An image, a ghost, a figure? And then what can this ‘four’ be that has a ‘first’ and a ‘seventh’? louis vuitton outlet And what is to be done with them? Move them, push them, pull them?”
     “So we know nothing and we are still where we started,” I said, with great dismay.
     William stopped and looked at me with an expression not entirely benevolent. “My boy,” he said, “you have before you a poor Franciscan who, with his modest learning and what little skill he owes to the infinite power of the Lord, has succeeded in a few hours in deciphering a secret code louis vuitton outlet whose author was sure would prove sealed to all save himself ... and you, wretched illiterate rogue, dare say we are still where we started?”
     I apologized very clumsily. I had wounded my master’s vanity, and yet I knew how proud he was of the speed and accuracy of his deductions. William truly had performed a job worthy of admiration, and it was not his fault if the crafty Venantius not only had concealed his discovery behind an obscure zodiacal alphabet, chanel bags outlet but had further devised an undecipherable riddle.
     “No matter, no matter, don’t apologize,” William interrupted me. “After all, you’re right. We still know too little. Come along.”
     Chapter 20
     In which the abbot speaks again with the visitors, and William has some astounding ideas for deciphering the riddle of the labyrinth and succeeds in the most rational way. Then William and Adso eat cheese in batter.
     The abbot was waiting for us with a grim, worried look. He was holding a paper in his louis vuitton outlet hand.
     “I have just received a letter from the abbot of Conques,” he said. “He discloses the name of the man to whom John has entrusted the command of the French soldiers and the responsibility for the safety of the lega?tion. He is not a man of arms, he is not a man of the court, and he will be at the same time a member of the legation.”