John Hardaway was dying. That wasn’t what he minded. His small, well-shaped hands twitched at the soft coverlet which rose and fell slowly with his breathing, and he breathed hard with mouth open, showing all his teeth.

Rabb, the nigger, crouched in the corner. The air about her was heavy with her odour. She kept blinking her eyes. She was awed at the presence of her master, but ashamed too, ashamed that he was dying—ashamed as she would have been had he been caught at his toilet.

Rabb was a good nigger; she had served John Hardaway’s mother, she had seen her die—old Mrs. Hardaway fluttered against her lace like a bird caught in deep foliage—Rabb had been able to do something about Mrs. Hardaway’s death because Mrs. Hardaway had loved her, in her way.

Mrs. Hardaway had died understandably—she had breathed hard too, opening her mouth, but it was gentle and eager, like a child at the breast.

Rabb had tried to be near her, had put her hands on her. But the thing she was trying to touch lay in some hidden corner of Mrs. Hardaway, as a cat hides away under a bed, and Rabb had done nothing after all.

But it was different with John Hardaway. She watched life playing coquettishly with him. It played with him as a dog plays with an old coat. It shook him suddenly in great gusts of merriment. It played with his eyelids; it twisted his mouth, it went in and out of his body, like a flame running through a funnel—throwing him utterly aside in the end, leaving him cold, lonely, and forbidding.

John Hardaway hated negroes with that hate a master calls love. He was a Southerner and never forgot it. Rabb had nursed him when he was an infant, she had seen him grow up into a big boy, and then she had been there when he broke his mistress’s back by some flaw in his otherwise flawless passion.

From time to time John Hardaway called for water. And when Rabb tried to lift his head, he cursed her for a ‘black bitch’—but in the end he had to let her hold it.

John Hardaway was fifty-nine, he had lived well, scornfully, and this always makes the end easier; he had been a gentleman in the only way a Southerner has of being one—he never forgot that he was a Hardaway——

He called out to her now:

“When I die—leave the room.”

“Yes, sah,” she whispered sadly.

“Bring me the broth.”

She brought it trembling. She was very tired and very hungry, and she wanted to whistle but she only whispered:

“Ain’t there nothing I kin do for you?”

“Open the window.”

“It’s night air, sah——”

“Open it, fool——”

She went to the window and opened it. She was handsome when she reached up, and her nose was almost as excellent as certain Jewish noses; her throat was smooth, and it throbbed.

Toward ten o’clock that night John Hardaway began to sing to himself. He was fond of French, but what he learned in French he sang in English.

“Ah, my little one—I have held you on my knee——

“I have kissed your ears and throat——

“Now I set you down——

“You may do as you will.”

He tried to turn over—but failed, and so he lay there staring into the fire.

At this point in the death of John Hardaway, Rabb, the nigger, came out of her corner, and ceased trembling. She was hungry and began heating some soup in a saucepan.

“What are you doing?” John Hardaway inquired abruptly.

“I’s hungry, sah.”

“Then get out of here—get into the kitchen.”

“Yes, sah,” but she did not move.

John Hardaway breathed heavily, a mist went over his eyes—presently, after interminable years, he lifted his lids. Rabb was now slowly sipping the steaming soup.

“You damned nigger!”

She got up from her haunches hurriedly—placing her hand in front of her, backing toward the door.

“Little one, I have taken you on my knee——”

Rabb crept back—she came up to the bed.

“Massah, don’t you think——?”

“What?”

“A priest—maybe?”

“Fool!”

“Yes, sah, I only wanted to make safe.”

He tried to laugh. He pressed his knees together. He had forgotten her.

Finally toward dawn he began to wander.

Rabb moistened the roll of red flesh inside her lip and set her teeth. She began to grin at nothing at all, stroking her hips.

He called to her.

“I want to tell you something.”

She came forward—rolling her eyes.

“Come closer.”

She came.

“Lean down!” She leaned down, but already the saliva began to fill her mouth.

“Are you frightened?”

“No, sah,” she lied.

He raised his hand but it fell back, feebly. “Keep your place,” he whispered, and instantly went to sleep.

He began to rattle in his throat, while Rabb crouched in the corner, holding her breasts in her folded arms and rocking softly on the balls of her feet.

The rattling kept on. Rabb began creeping toward him on hands and knees.

“Massah!”

He did not move.

“John!”

He felt a strange sensation—he lifted his eyelids with their fringe of white lashes and almost inaudibly said:

“Now go!”

He had closed his eyes a long time, when he was troubled with the thought that someone was trying to get into his body as he left it. He opened his eyes and there stood Rabb the nigger very close, looking down at him.

A gush of blood sprang from his nose.

“No, sah!”

He began to gasp. Rabb the nigger stood up to her full height and looked down at him. She began to fan him, quickly. He breathed more hurriedly, his chest falling together like a house of cards. He tried to speak, he could not.

Suddenly Rabb bent down and leaning her mouth to his, breathed into him, one great and powerful breath. His chest rose, he opened his eyes, said “Ah!” and died.

Rabb ran her tongue along her lips, and raising her eyes, stared at a spot on the wall a little higher than she was wont to. After a while she remembered her unfinished soup.