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 connexion. I had put together two links of a great chain.
There was a boat lying on a sea-coast, and not far from the boat was a
parchment --not a paper --with a skull depicted on it. You will, of
course, ask 'where is the connexion?' 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.
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