"Glory!" cried the black man, clapping his hands; "pile on!"
"An' now," continued the parson, "bring this pore, backslidin'
jackace of a parson and this pore ole fool nigger back to thar
home in peace!"
"Pray fo' de money!" called Colossus.
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 favor; 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 townward, followed by that fagged-out spaniel,
his servant, saying, as he turned, "Baptiste." "Miche?"
"You know w'at I goin' 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's 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.