d, and speaking low through the
slightly opened door from within the Englishman's bed-chamber, thanked
them, explained that a will was to be made, and was just asking them to
find seats in the adjoining front room, when the notary, aged, bent,
dark-goggled, and as insensible as a machine, arrived. Attalie's offers to
explain were murmurously waved away by his wrinkled hand, and the four men
followed her into the bedchamber. The black maid-of-all-work also entered.

The room was heavily darkened. There was a rich aroma of fine brandy on
its air. The Englishman's little desk had been drawn up near the bedside.
Two candles were on it, unlighted, in small, old silver candlesticks.
Attalie, grief-worn, distressed, visibly agitated, moved close to the
bedside. Her sad figure suited the place with poetic fitness. The notary
stood by the chair at the desk. The three witnesses edged along the wall
where the curtained windows glimmered, took seats there, and held their
hats in their hands. All looked at one object.

It was a man reclining on the bed under a light covering, deep in pillows,
his head and shoulders much bundled up in wrappings. He moaned faintly and
showed every sign of utmost weakness. His eyes opened only now and then,
but when they did so they shone intelligently, though with a restless
intensity apparently from both pain and anxiety.

He gasped a faint word. Attalie hung over him for an instant, and then
turning quickly to her maid, who was lighting the candles for the notary
and placing them so they should not shine into the eyes of the man in bed,
said:

"His feet--another hot-water bottle."

The maid went to get it. While she was gone the notary asked the butcher,
then the baker, and then the candlestick-maker, if they could speak and
understand English, and where they resided. Their answers were
satisfactory. Then he sat down, bent low to the desk, and wrote on a blank
form the preamble of a nuncupative will. By the time he had finished, the
maid had got back and the hot bottle had been properly placed. The notary
turned his goggles upon the reclining figure and asked in English, with a
strong Creole accent:

"What is your name?"

The words of the man in the bed were an inaudible gasp. But Attalie bent
her ear quickly, caught them, and turning repeated:

"More brandy."

The black girl brought a decanter from the floor behind the bureau, and a
wine-glass from the washstand. Attalie poured, the patie