"Come, we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is Luchesi --"

      "Enough, the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough."

      "True - true, and, indeed, I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily - but you should use all proper caution. A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps."

      Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long row of its fellows that lay upon the mould.

      "Drink," I said, presenting him the wine.

      He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled.

      "I drink to the buried that repose around us."

      "And I to your long life."