But the parson prayed for Jules.

“Pray fo’ de money!” repeated the negro.

“And oh, give thy servant back that there lost money!”

Colossus rose stealthily, and tiptoed by his still shouting master. St.-Ange, the captain, the crew, gazed in silent wonder at the strategist. Pausing but an instant over the master’s hat to grin an acknowledgment of his beholders’ speechless interest, he softly placed in it the faithfully mourned and honestly prayed-for Smyrna fund; then, saluted by the gesticulative, silent applause of St.-Ange and the schooner men, he resumed his first attitude behind his roaring master.

“Amen!” cried Colossus, meaning to bring him to a close.

“Onworthy though I be—” cried Jones.

“Amen!” reiterated the negro.

“A-a-amen!” said Parson Jones.

He rose to his feet, and, stooping to take up his hat, beheld the well-known roll. As one stunned, he gazed for a moment upon his slave, who still knelt with clasped hands and rolling eyeballs; but when he became aware of the laughter and cheers that greeted him from both deck and shore, he lifted eyes and hands to heaven, and cried like the veriest babe. And when he looked at the roll again, and hugged and kissed it, St.-Ange tried to raise a second shout, but choked, and the crew fell to their poles.

And now up runs Baptiste, covered with slime, and prepares to cast his projectiles. The first one fell wide of the mark; the schooner swung round into a long reach of water, where the breeze was in her favour; another shout of laughter drowned the maledictions of the muddy man; the sails filled; Colossus of Rhodes, smiling and bowing as hero of the moment, ducked as the main boom swept round, and the schooner, leaning slightly to the pleasant influence, rustled a moment over the bulrushes, and then sped far away down the rippling bayou.

M. Jules St.-Ange stood long, gazing at the receding vessel as it now disappeared, now reappeared, beyond the tops of the high undergrowth; but when an arm of the forest hid it finally from sight he turned downward, followed by that fagged-out spaniel, his servant, saying, as he turned, “Baptiste.”

“Miché?”

“You know w’at I goin’ to do wid dis money?”

“Non, m’sieur.”

“Well, you can strike me dead if I don’t goin’ to pay hall my debts! Allons!”

He began a merry little song to the effect that his sweetheart was a wine bottle, and master and man, leaving care behind, returned to the picturesque Rue Royale. The ways of Providence are indeed strange. In all Parson Jones’ after life, amid the many painful reminiscences of his visit to the City of the Plain, the sweet knowledge was withheld from him that by the light of the Christian virtue that shone from him even in his great fall, Jules St.-Ange arose, and went to his father an honest man.