CHAPTER VI.

TWO DYING BEQUESTS.

This midsummer night was sultry and still. The darkness was like the
darkness of Egypt, lighted every now and then by a vivid Hash of
lightning, from what quarter of the heavens no man knew. The inky sky
was invisible--no breath of air stirred the terrible calm. The
midsummer night was full of dark and deadly menace.

Hours ago a fierce and wrathful sunset had burned itself out on a
brassy sky. The sun, a lurid ball of fire, had sunk in billows of
blood-red cloud, and pitch blackness had fallen upon earth and sky and
sea. Everything above and below breathed of speedy tempest, but the
midnight was drawing near, and the storm had not yet burst.

And on this black June night Sir Jasper Kingsland lay on his stately
bed, dying.

The lofty chamber was but dimly lighted. It was a grand, vast room,
paneled in black oak, hung with somber draperies, and carpeted in rich
dark Brussels.

Three wax candles made white spots of light in the solemn gloom; a
wood-fire burned or rather smoldered, in the wide hearth, for the vast
rooms were chilly even in midsummer; but neither fire-light nor
candle-light could illumine the ghostly depths of the chamber. Shadows
crouched like evil things in the dusky corners, and round the bed, only