t. The wreck seemed to have been there for
a very great while; for the resemblance to boat timbers could scarcely
be traced.

"Well, Jupiter picked up the parchment, wrapped the beetle in it, and
gave it to me. Soon afterwards we turned to go home, and on the way met
Lieutenant G----. I showed him the insect, and he begged me to let him
take it to the fort. Upon my consenting, he thrust it forthwith into his
waistcoat pocket, without the parchment in which it had been wrapped,
and which I had continued to hold in my hand during his inspection.
Perhaps he dreaded my changing my mind, and thought it best to make sure
of the prize at once--you know how enthusiastic he is on all subjects
connected with Natural History. At the same time, without being
conscious of it, I must have deposited the parchment in my own pocket.

"You remember that when I went to the table, for the purpose of making a
sketch of the beetle, I found no paper where it was usually kept. I
looked in the drawer and found none there. I searched my pockets, hoping
to find an old letter, when my hand fell upon the parchment. I thus
detail the precise mode in which it came into my possession; for the
circumstances impressed me with peculiar force.

"No doubt you will think me fanciful--but I had already established a
kind of _connection_. I had put together two links of a great chain.
There was a boat lying upon a sea-coast, and not far from the boat was a
parchment--_not a paper_--with a skull depicted upon it. You will, of
course, ask, 'where is the connection?' I reply that the skull, or
death's-head, is the well-known emblem of the pirate. The flag of the
death's-head is hoisted in all engagements.

"I have said that the scrap was parchment, and not paper. Parchment is
durable--almost imperishable. Matters of little moment are rarely
consigned to parchment; since for the mere ordinary purposes of drawing
or writing it is not nearly so well adapted as paper. This reflection
suggested some meaning--some relevancy--in the death's-head. I did not
fail to observe, also, the _form_ of the parchment. Although one of its
corners had been, by some accident, destroyed, it could be seen that the
original form was oblong. It was just a slip, indeed, as might have been
chosen for a memorandum--for a record of something to be long remembered
and carefully preserved."

"But," I interposed, "you say that the skull was _not_ upon the
parchment when you made the drawi