As he mentioned his assumed name a faint but bitter smile flickered across his face. I knelt by his side, and, thinking it might afford him relief, raised his head, but he bade me let it lie.
"I shan't be able to talk much longer," he said, and his voice was even weaker than before. "Feel round my neck; you'll find a locket there—the famous locket—take it off."
I did so, placing it in his hand.
"You've been very good to me, Ramsay, one of the only men in the world who ever was, and in return I want to do something for you. Take this locket, it's all I have to leave you, but, as the others knew, it's the key to my fortune. It will make you a rich man."
He paused to regain his strength.
"As soon as you get away from here work your way home to London. And when you have been there a month—swear you will not do so before, I have the best of reasons for asking it—open it."
I swore that I would respect his wishes, and he continued—
"You will find in the locket a small slip of paper on which is written a name and address. Go to the address, show the paper just as you have it there, and demand from the man Two Hundred Thousand Pounds. When he sees that slip of paper in your possession he will pay it without demur. And may you be as happy with the money as I intended to be. Above all things steer clear of John Macklin, for if he dreams that you have the locket he'll stick at nothing to get it from you."
"But is there nothing I can do for you?" I asked, thinking he might like to send some message to the old land he appeared to love so well.
He only shook his head sadly, intimating that there was no one there who would be either glad or sorry for his death.