the sketch at which you had been looking, and you may imagine my
astonishment when I perceived, in fact, the figure of a death's-head
just where, it seemed to me, I had made the drawing of the beetle. For a
moment I was too much amazed to think with accuracy. I knew that my
design was very different in detail from this--although there was a
certain similarity in general outline. Presently I took a candle, and,
seating myself at the other end of the room, proceeded to scrutinize the
parchment more closely. Upon turning it over, I saw my own sketch upon
the reverse, just as I had made it. My first idea, now, was mere
surprise at the really remarkable similarity of outline--at the singular
coincidence involved in the fact that, unknown to me, there should have
been a skull upon the other side of the parchment, immediately beneath
my figure of the _scarabæus_, and that this skull, not only in outline,
but in size, should so closely resemble my drawing. I say the
singularity of this coincidence absolutely stupefied me for a time. This
is the usual effect of such coincidences. The mind struggles to
establish a connection--a sequence of cause and effect--and, being
unable to do so, suffers a species of temporary paralysis. But, when I
recovered from this stupor, there dawned upon me gradually a conviction
which startled me even far more than the coincidence. I began
distinctly, positively, to remember that there had been _no_ drawing on
the parchment when I made my sketch of the _scarabæus_. I became
perfectly certain of this; for I recollected turning up first one side
and then the other, in search of the cleanest spot. Had the skull been
then there, of course I could not have failed to notice it. Here was
indeed a mystery which I felt it impossible to explain; but, even at
that early moment, there seemed to glimmer, faintly, within the most
remote and secret chambers of my intellect, a glow-worm-like conception
of that truth which last night's adventure brought to so magnificent a
demonstration. I arose at once, and, putting the parchment securely