There was something piteous now in my grandfather's hard, grave face. "Don't go, grandfather," I pleaded, with my arm at his neck, "don't go! Grandfather Nat! You're not—not going to die, are you?"
"That's as God wills, my boy. We must all die some day."
I think he was near breaking down here; but at the moment a voice called up the stairs.
"Are you coming?" said the voice. "Time's nearly up!" And it frightened me more than I can say to know this second voice at last for Viney's.
But my grandfather was firm again at once. "Yes," he cried, "I'm coming!... No more to do, Stevy—snivelling's no good." And then Grandfather Nat put his hands clumsily together, and shut his eyes like a little child. "God bless an' save this boy, whatever happens. Amen," said Grandfather Nat.
Then he rose and took from the cash-box the watch that the broken-nosed man had sold. "There's that, too," he said musingly. "I dunno why I kep' it so long." And with that he shut the cash-box, and strode across to the landing. He looked back at me for a moment, but said nothing; and then descended the stairs.
Bewildered and miserably frightened, I followed him.
I could neither reason nor cry out, and I had an agonised hope that I was not really awake, and that this was just such a nightmare as had afflicted me on the night of the murder at our door. I crouched on the lower stairs, and listened....
"Yes, I've got it," said my grandfather, answering an eager question. "There it is. Look at that—count the notes."
I heard a hasty scrabbling of paper.