A lightning rod is ascended without
      difficulty, especially by a sailor; but, when he had arrived as
      high as the window, which lay far to his left, his career was
      stopped; the most that he could accomplish was to reach over so
      as to obtain a glimpse of the interior of the room. At this
      glimpse he nearly fell from his hold through excess of horror. Now it was that those hideous shrieks arose upon the night, which
      had startled from slumber the inmates of the Rue Morgue. Madame
      L’Espanaye and her daughter, habited in their night clothes, had
      apparently been occupied in arranging some papers in the iron
      chest already mentioned, which had been wheeled into the middle
      of the room. It was open, and its contents lay beside it on the
      floor. The victims must have been sitting with their backs toward
      the window; and, from the time elapsing between the ingress of
      the beast and the screams, it seems probable that it was not
      immediately perceived. The flapping-to of the shutter would
      naturally have been attributed to the wind. As the sailor looked in, the gigantic animal had seized Madame
      L’Espanaye by the hair, (which was loose, as she had been combing
      it,) and was flourishing the razor about her face, in imitation
      of the motions of a barber. The daughter lay prostrate and
      motionless; she had swooned. The screams and struggles of the old
      lady (during which the hair was torn from her head) had the
      effect of changing the probably pacific purposes of the
      Ourang-Outang into those of wrath. With one determined sweep of
      its muscular arm it nearly severed her head from her body. The
      sight of blood inflamed its anger into phrenzy. Gnashing its
      teeth, and flashing fire from its eyes, it flew upon the body of
      the girl, and imbedded its fearful talons in her throat,
      retaining its grasp until she expired. Its wandering and wild
      glances fell at this moment upon the head of the bed, over which
      the face of its master, rigid with horror, was just discernible. The fury of the beast, who no doubt bore still in mind the
      dreaded whip, was instantly converted into fear. Conscious of
      having deserved punishment, it seemed desirous of concealing its
      bloody deeds, and skipped about the chamber in an agony of
      nervous agitation; throwing down and breaking the furniture as it
      moved, and dragging the bed from the bedstead. In conclusion, it
      seized first the corpse of the daughter, and thrust it up the
      chimney, as it was found; then that of the old lady, which it
      immediately hurled through the window headlong. As the ape approached the casement with its mutilated burden, the
      sailor shrank aghast to the rod, and, rather gliding than
      clambering down it, hurried at once home—dreading the
      consequences of the butchery, and gladly abandoning, in his
      terror, all solicitude about the fate of the Ourang-Outang. The
      words heard by the party upon the staircase were the Frenchman’s
      exclamations of horror and affright, commingled with the fiendish
      jabberings of the brute. I have scarcely anything to add. The Ourang-Outang must have
      escaped from the chamber, by the rod, just before the breaking of
      the door. It must have closed the window as it passed through it. It was subsequently caught by the owner himself, who obtained for
      it a very large sum at the _Jardin des Plantes._ Le Don was
      instantly released, upon our narration of the circumstances (with
      some comments from Dupin) at the bureau of the Prefect of Police. This functionary, however well disposed to my friend, could not
      altogether conceal his chagrin at the turn which affairs had
      taken, and was fain to indulge in a sarcasm or two, about the
      propriety of every person minding his own business. “Let him talk,” said Dupin, who had not thought it necessary to
      reply. “Let him discourse; it will ease his conscience, I am
      satisfied with having defeated him in his own castle. Nevertheless, that he failed in the solution of this mystery, is
      by no means that matter for wonder which he supposes it; for, in
      truth, our friend the Prefect is somewhat too cunning to be
      profound. In his wisdom is no _stamen._ It is all head and no
      body, like the pictures of the Goddess Laverna,—or, at best, all
      head and shoulders, like a codfish. But he is a good creature
      after all. I like him especially for one master stroke of cant,
      by which he has attained his reputation for ingenuity. I mean the
      way he has ‘_de nier ce qui est, et d’expliquer ce qui n’est
      pas._’” (*)

      (*) Rousseau—Nouvelle Heloïse. THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET. (*1)


      A SEQUEL TO “THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE.”

  Es giebt eine Reihe idealischer Begebenheiten, die der Wirklichkeit
  parallel lauft. Selten fallen sie zusammen. Menschen und zufalle
  modificiren gewohulich die idealische Begebenheit, so dass sie
  unvollkommen erscheint, und ihre Folgen gleichfalls unvollkommen
  sind. So bei der Reformation; statt des Protestantismus kam das
  Lutherthum hervor. There are ideal series of events which run parallel with the real
      ones. They rarely coincide. Men and circumstances generally
      modify the ideal train of events, so that it seems imperfect, and
      its consequences are equally imperfect. Thus with the
      Reformation; instead of Protestantism came
      Lutheranism.—_Novalis_. (*2) _Moral Ansichten_. There are few persons, even among the calmest thinkers, who have
      not occasionally been startled into a vague yet thrilling
      half-credence in the supernatural, by coincidences of so
      seemingly marvellous a character that, as mere coincidences, the
      intellect has been unable to receive them. Such sentiments—for
      the half-credences of which I speak have never the full force of
      thought—such sentiments are seldom thoroughly stifled unless by
      reference to the doctrine of chance, or, as it is technically
      termed, the Calculus of Probabilities. Now this Calculus is, in
      its essence, purely mathematical; and thus we have the anomaly of
      the most rigidly exact in science applied to the shadow and
      spirituality of the most intangible in speculation. The extraordinary details which I am now called upon to make
      public, will be found to form, as regards sequence of time, the
      primary branch of a series of scarcely intelligible coincidences,
      whose secondary or concluding branch will be recognized by all
      readers in the late murder of Mary Cecila Rogers, at New York.