“Not a whit more so than his son Jack. Where is he?—where is Jack?”
None could answer him, and there was a silence of some minutes.
“Jack Kellett would never have deserted me in this way if he were alive and well,” muttered Conway, painfully. “Can no one give me any tidings of him?”
Another silence ensued.
“And I intended he should have been my heir,” said Conway, dreamily. “How strangely it sounds, to be sure, the notion of inheriting anything from Charley Conway! How little chance there was a month or two back that my best legacy might not have been a shabrack or a pair of pistols; and now I'm the Lord Viscount—what is it?—Viscount—”
A wild gust of wind—one of those swooping blasts for which the Euxine is famous—now struck the strong old walls, and made the massive casements rattle. The sick man started at the noise, which recalled at once the crash of the battle-field, and he cried out vigorously, “Move up, men,—move up; keep together, and charge! Charge!” and with bent-down head and compressed lips he seemed like one prepared to meet a murderous onslaught. A sudden faintness succeeded to this excitement, and he lay back weak and exhausted. As he fell back, a letter dropped from his hand to the ground. Classon speedily caught it up, and opened it. He had, however, but time to read the opening line, which ran thus—“My dearest Charley, our cause is all but won—”
“From his mother,” interposed Driscoll, leaning over his shoulder.
“Ay, my mother,” murmured Conway, whose ear, preternaturally acute from fever, caught the word; “she will see that my wishes are carried out, and that all I leave behind me goes to poor Jack.”
“We'll take care of that, sir,” said Classon, blandly; “only let us know what it is you desire. We have no other object here than to learn your wishes.”
With all the alacrity of one accustomed to such emergencies, Paul drew a small portfolio from his pocket provided with all materials for writing, and arrayed them neatly before him; but already the sick man had dropped off into a sleep, and was breathing heavily.