ep his hold on life, then he gazed hard at
the grate, cold as his own metallic eyes, and died in full consciousness
of death. To us--the portress, the old pensioner, and myself--he looked
like one of the old Romans standing behind the Consuls in Lethiere's
picture of the _Death of the Sons of Brutus_.

"'He was a good-plucked one, the old Lascar!' said the pensioner in his
soldierly fashion.

"But as for me, the dying man's fantastical enumeration of his riches
still sounding in my ears, and my eyes, following the direction of his,
rested on that heap of ashes. It struck me that it was very large. I
took the tongs, and as soon as I stirred the cinders, I felt the metal
underneath, a mass of gold and silver coins, receipts taken during his
illness, doubtless, after he grew too feeble to lock the money up, and
could trust no one to take it to the bank for him.

"'Run for the justice of the peace,' said I, turning to the old
pensioner, 'so that everything can be sealed here at once.'

"Gobseck's last words and the old portress' remarks had struck me.
I took the keys of the rooms on the first and second floor to make a
visitation. The first door that I opened revealed the meaning of the
phrases which I took for mad ravings; and I saw the length to which
covetousness goes when it survives only as an illogical instinct, the
last stage of greed of which you find so many examples among misers in
country towns.

"In the room next to the one in which Gobseck had died, a quantity of
eatables of all kinds were stored--putrid pies, mouldy fish, nay, even
shell-fish, the stench almost choked me. Maggots and insects swarmed.
These comparatively recent presents were put down, pell-mell, among
chests of tea, bags of coffee, and packing-cases of every shape. A
silver soup tureen on the chimney-piece was full of advices of the
arrival of goods consigned to his order at Havre, bales of cotton,
hogsheads of sugar, barrels of rum, coffees, indigo, tobaccos, a perfect
bazaar of colonial produce. The room itself was crammed with furniture,
and silver-plate, and lamps, and vases, and pictures; there were books,
and curiosities, and fine engravings lying rolled up, unframed. Perhaps
these were not all presents, and some part of this vast quantity of
stuff had been deposited with him in the shape of pledges, and had been
left on his hands in default of payment. I noticed jewel-cases, with
ciphers and armorial bearings stamped upon them, and