"
"But I have just said that the figure was _not_ that of a goat."
"Well, a kid, then--pretty much the same thing."
"Pretty much, but not altogether," said Legrand. "You may have heard
of one _Captain_ Kidd. I at once looked on the figure of the animal as
a kind of punning or hieroglyphical signature. I say signature,
because its position on the vellum suggested this idea. The
death's-head at the corner diagonally opposite had, in the same
manner, the air of a stamp, or seal. But I was sorely put out by the
absence of all else--of the body to my imagined instrument--of the
text for my context."
"I presume you expected to find a letter between the stamp and the
signature."
"Something of that kind. The fact is, I felt irresistibly impressed
with a presentiment of some vast good fortune impending. I can
scarcely say why. Perhaps, after all, it was rather a desire than an
actual belief;--but do you know that Jupiter's silly words, about the
bug being of solid gold, had a remarkable effect on my fancy? And then
the series of accidents and coincidences--these were so _very_
extraordinary. Do you observe how mere an accident it was that these
events should have occurred on the _sole_ day of all the year in which
it has been, or may be, sufficiently cool for fire, and that without
the fire, or without the intervention of the dog at the precise moment
in which he appeared, I should never have become aware of the
death's-head, and so never the possessor of the treasure?"
"But proceed--I am all impatience.
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