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 _scarab?¦us_, 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 stupified 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 _scarab?¦us_. I became perfectly certain of this; for I
recollected turning up first one side and then the other, in search of
the cleanest spot.
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