rucifixes;
five gold censers of great value; a prodigious golden punch-bowl,
ornamented with richly chased vine-leaves and Bacchanalian figures;
with two sword-handles exquisitely embossed, and many other smaller
articles which I can not recollect. The weight of these valuables
exceeded three hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois; and in this
estimate I have not included one hundred and ninety-seven superb gold
watches; three of the number being worth each five hundred dollars, if
one. Many of them were very old, and as timekeepers, valueless; the
works having suffered, more or less, from corrosion--but all were
richly jewelled and in cases of great worth. We estimated the entire
contents of the chest, that night, at a million and a half of dollars;
and upon the subsequent disposal of the trinkets and jewels (a few
being retained 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 afterward 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 th