“There--there--’tis the voice of Rainford again!” cried Old Death, evidently seized with ineffable terror. “But, no--no--you are the Earl of Ellingham--you must be the Earl! Yet why do you every now and then imitate the tone of Tom Rain? Is it to frighten me, my lord? Tell me--is it to frighten me?” “You seem inaccessible to fear of any kind,” answered the Black,--“I mean a fear which may be permanent and salutary. You have occasional qualms of conscience, which you cannot altogether resist, but which almost immediately pass away. Have you no wish to make your peace with heaven? Would you pray with a clergyman, were one to visit you?” “No:--I am unfit for prayer--I should not have the patience to stand the questioning of a clergyman,” answered Old Death hastily: then, almost immediately afterwards, he said, “But I was wrong to give such a reply! Yes--send me a clergyman--let him bring a light--do any thing to relieve me from this solitude and this darkness. My lord--for I know that you are the Earl of Ellingham--pray take compassion upon me! I am an old--a very old man, my lord; and I cannot endure this confinement. I told you just now that I was sorry for what I did to your brother-in-law; and you know that I cannot recall him to life. Neither will you do so by killing me. Have mercy upon me, then, my lord: let me leave this horrible place----” “To enter the great world again, and renew your course of crime?” interrupted the Black. “No--Benjamin Bones, that may not be! Let me first become assured that you sincerely and truly repent of your misdeeds--let me be impressed with the conviction that you are sorry for the crimes which have marked your long life,--and then--_then_, we will speak of ameliorating your condition. For the present, do not consider me as your enemy--do not look upon me as a man acting towards you from vindictive motives only. No:--for were I inclined to vent on you a miserable spite or a fiendish malignity, the means are not deficient. I might keep you without food for days together--but each day your provender is renewed: or I might even kill you outright--and yet I would not violently injure a hair of your head! To-morrow evening I will visit you again: in the meantime endeavour to subdue your feelings so that you may then speak to me without irritation.” With these words the Black abruptly thrust the door open, and quitted the dungeon; but at that instant Cæsar, who had been pacing up and down with Wilton in the immediate vicinity of that particular cell, was so close to the entrance that the light of the lamp which he carried in his hand streamed full upon the countenance of his master as the latter sprang forth from the deep darkness of Old Death’s prison-house.