for our own use), it was found that we had greatly undervalued the
treasure.

When, at length, we had concluded our examination, and the intense
excitement of the time had in some measure subsided, Legrand, who saw
that I was dying with impatience for a solution of this most
extraordinary riddle, entered into a full detail of all the
circumstances connected with it.

"You remember," said he, "the night when I handed you the rough sketch I
had made of the _scarabaeus_. You recollect, also, that I became quite
vexed at you for insisting that my drawing resembled a death's-head.
When you first made this assertion I thought you were jesting; but
afterwards I called to mind the peculiar spots on the back of the
insect, and admitted to myself that your remark had some little
foundation in fact. Still, the sneer at my graphic powers irritated
me--for I am considered a good artist--and, therefore, when you handed
me the scrap of parchment, I was about to crumple it up and throw it
angrily into the fire."

"The scrap of paper, you mean," said I.

"No: it had much of the appearance of paper, and at first I supposed it
to be such, but when I came to draw upon it, I discovered it, at once,
to be a piece of very thin parchment. It was quite dirty, you remember.
Well, as I was in the very act of crumpling it up, my glance fell upon
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 _scarabaeus_, 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
establi