The words "strange!" "singular!" and other similar expressions, excited my curiosity.
I approached and saw, as if graven in bas-relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat.
The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous.
There was a rope about the animal's neck.
When I first beheld this apparition-for I could scarcely regard it as less-my wonder and my terror were extreme.
But at length reflection came to my aid.
The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house.
Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd-by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window, into my chamber.
This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep.
The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, with the flames and the ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.