became indistinct, from the horror with which he listened to the increasing hiccup of the patient, which, however, he struggled with from time to time, to ask the housekeeper if _the niggers were closed_. John, who was a lad of feeling, rose from his knees in some degree of agitation. “What, are you leaving me like the rest?” said old Melmoth, trying to raise himself in the bed. “No, Sir,” said John; “but,” observing the altered looks of the dying man, “I think you want some refreshment, some support, Sir.” “Aye, I do, I do, but whom can I trust to get it for me. _They_, (and his haggard eye wandered round the group), _they_ would poison me.” “Trust me, Sir,” said John; “I will go to the apothecary’s, or whoever you may employ.” The old man grasped his hand, drew him close to his bed, cast a threatening yet fearful eye round the party, and then whispered in a voice of agonized constraint, “I want a glass of wine, it would keep me alive for some hours, but there is not one I can trust to get it for me,--_they’d steal a bottle, and ruin me_.” John was greatly shocked. “Sir, for God’s sake, let _me_ get a glass of wine for you.” “Do you know where?” said the old man, with an expression in his face John could not understand. “No, Sir; you know I have been rather a stranger here, Sir.” “Take this key,” said old Melmoth, after a violent spasm; “take this key, there is wine in that closet,--_Madeira_. I always told them there was nothing there, but they did not believe me, or I should not have been robbed as I have been. At one time I said it was whiskey, and then I fared worse than ever, for they drank twice as much of it.” John took the key from his uncle’s hand; the dying man pressed it as he did so, and John, interpreting this as a mark of kindness, returned the pressure. He was undeceived by the whisper that followed,--“John, my lad, don’t drink any of that wine while you are there.” “Good God!” said John, indignantly throwing the key on the bed; then, recollecting that the miserable being before him was no object of resentment, he gave the promise required, and entered the closet, which no foot but that of old Melmoth had entered for nearly sixty years. He had some difficulty in finding out the wine, and indeed staid long enough to justify his uncle’s suspicions,--but his mind was agitated, and his hand unsteady. He could not but remark his uncle’s extraordinary look, that had the ghastliness of fear superadded to that of death, as he gave him permission to enter his closet. He could not but see the looks of horror which the women exchanged as he approached it. And, finally, when he was in it, his memory was malicious enough to suggest some faint traces of a story, too horrible for imagination, connected with it. He remembered in one moment most 

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