Men walked abroad and recognized their beloved Nepenthe once more.  It glowed in the tenderest hues.  The events of morning and midday were like a bad dream.  Everything sparkled with unaccustomed brilliance; the land was refreshed—­swept clean; the sea alone remained discoloured to a dingy brown.  Truly, as the Commissioner—­once more a sound Protestant—­remarked in later years:  “The old rotter came up to the scratch that time.”  So clear and pleasant was the air that it seemed as if the wind had actually veered to the north.  But no.  It still blew from the other quarter—­the old familiar sirocco.  Which proved that the shower of ashes had not been “carried elsewhere,” as the youthful teacher of mathematics had prognosticated.  It had not been carried anywhere.  It simply ceased to fall, the volcano having momentarily run out of its stock of objectionable materials.

The Clubmen therefore, calling to mind the discussion of the morning, were led to revise their opinion as to that gentleman’s intelligence.  They remembered one or two things.  They remembered that even when Heavenly Powers are not known to be directly interested in the event, eruptions now and then come to an end quite irrespective of the wind—­a contingency which had not been foreseen in the acute young Scandinavian’s computations.

“That comes,” they said, “of studying the higher mathematics. . . .”

For their miraculous deliverance from a shower of volcanic ashes the islanders gave all credit, as might have been expected, to their Patron Saint.  And this proves how inadequately causes and effects are understood, here on earth.  For the priests, the most intelligent section of the populace, knew perfectly well that but for the orders of the parroco no procession could have taken place.  The Saint would have remained locked up in his musty shrine, without the faintest chance of performing a miracle of any kind.  They argued, consequently, that Saint Dodekanus got the credit for what was really the parroco’s notion.  And Torquemada, thinking over the day’s proceedings, was driven to confess that he was indebted for the suggestion to the fertile brain of the Nicaraguan Representative; in other words that he, the parroco, was praised for what was really the Commissioner’s idea.  And it is evident that if Mr. Parker’s lady had not died from the effects of a mosquito-sting, that gentleman would never have been in such a complex funk as to suggest a procession to the worthy priest.

Thus it came about that the Commissioner, the Parish Priest, and the Patron Saint got the credit for what was really an insect’s work.

Which shows how a mosquito can cure an eruption.

CHAPTER XXIV

Everybody was drunk that night in honour of the Saint’s bounty, though Miss Wilberforce reached the climax of her activities at the early hour of 4 p.m.—­during the torchlight procession.