“That is John’s voice,” said the dying man; and the little kindness he had ever shewed this unfortunate lad rushed on his hard heart at this moment, and touched it. He saw himself, too, surrounded by heartless and rapacious menials; and slight as must have been his dependence on a relative whom he had always treated as a stranger, he felt at this hour he was no stranger, and grasped at his support like a straw amid his wreck. “John, my good boy, you are there.--I kept you far from me when living, and now you are nearest me when dying.--John, _read on_.” John, affected deeply by the situation in which he beheld this _poor man_, amid all his wealth, as well as by the solemn request to impart consolation to his dying moments, read on;--but in a short time his voice 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 groupe), _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.”