hand, you are bound by every principle of honor to confess all you know. An innocent man is now imprisoned, charged with that crime of which you can point out the perpetrator."
The sailor had recovered his presence of mind in a great measure while Dupin uttered these words, but his original boldness of bearing was all gone.
"So help me God," said he, after a brief pause, "I will tell you all I know about this affair;—but I do not expect you to believe one-half I say—I would be a fool indeed if I did. Still I am innocent, and I will make a clean breast if I die for it."
What he stated was in substance this. He had lately made a voyage to the Indian Archipelago. A party, of which he formed one, landed at Borneo and passed into the interior on an excursion of pleasure. Himself and a companion had captured the Ourang-outang. This companion dying, the animal fell into his own exclusive possession. After great trouble, occasioned by the intractable ferocity of his captive during the home voyage, he at length succeeded in landing it safely at his own residence in Paris, where, not to attract towards himself the unpleasant curiosity of his neighbors, be kept it carefully secluded until such time as it should recover from a wound in the foot received from a splinter on board ship. His ultimate design was to sell it.
Returning home from some sailor's frolic on the night, or rather in the morning of the murder, he found the beast occupying his own bedroom, into which it had broken from a closet adjoining, where it had been, as was thought, securely confined. Razor in hand and fully lathered, it was sitting before a looking-glass attempting the operation of shaving, in which it had no doubt previously watched its master through the keyhole of the closet. Terrified at the sight of so
