“Ah!” cried the Creole, “c’est very true.  I ged this money in the mysterieuze way.  Mais, if I keep dis money, you know where it goin’ be to-night?”

“I really can’t say,” replied the parson.

“Goin’ to de dev’,” said the sweetly-smiling young man.

The schooner-captain, leaning against the shrouds, and even Baptiste, laughed outright.

“O Jools, you mustn’t!”

“Well, den, w’at I shall do wid it?”

“Any thing!” answered the parson; “better donate it away to some poor man——­”

“Ah!  Misty Posson Jone’, dat is w’at I want.  You los’ five hondred dollar’—­’twas me fault.”

“No, it wa’n’t, Jools.”

“Mais, it was!”

“No!”

“It was me fault!  I swear it was me fault!  Mais, here is five hondred dollar’; I wish you shall take it.  Here!  I don’t got no use for money.—­Oh, my faith!  Posson Jone’, you must not begin to cry some more”

Parson Jones was choked with tears.  “When he found voice he said: 

“O Jools, Jools, Jools! my pore, noble, dear, mis-guidened friend! ef you hed of hed a Christian raisin’!  May the Lord show you your errors better’n I kin, and bless you for your good intentions—­oh, no!  I cayn’t touch that money with a ten-foot pole; it wa’n’t rightly got; you must really excuse me, my dear friend, but I cayn’t touch it.”

St. Ange was petrified.

“Good-bye, dear Jools,” continued the parson.  “I’m in the Lord’s haynds, and he’s very merciful, which I hope and trust you’ll find it out.  Good-bye!”—­the schooner swang slowly off before the breeze—­“goodbye!”

St. Ange roused himself.

“Posson Jone’! make me hany’ow dis promise:  you never, never, never will come back to New Orleans.”

“Ah, Jools, the Lord willin’, I’ll never leave home again!”

“All right!” cried the Creole; “I thing he’s willin’.  Adieu, Posson Jone’.  My faith’! you are the so fighting an’ moz rilligious man as I never saw!  Adieu!  Adieu!”

Baptiste uttered a cry and presently ran by his master toward the schooner, his hands full of clods.

St. Ange looked just in time to see the sable form of Colossus of Rhodes emerge from the vessel’s hold, and the pastor of Smyrna and Bethesda seize him in his embrace.

“O Colossus! you outlandish old nigger!  Thank the Lord!  Thank the Lord!”

The little Creole almost wept.  He ran down the towpath, laughing and swearing, and making confused allusion to the entire personnel and furniture of the lower regions.

By odd fortune, at the moment that St.-Ange further demonstrated his delight by tripping his mulatto into a bog, the schooner came brushing along the reedy bank with a graceful curve, the sails flapped, and the crew fell to poling her slowly along.

Parson Jones was on the deck, kneeling once more in prayer.  His hat had fallen before him; behind him knelt his slave.  In thundering tones he was confessing himself “a plum fool,” from whom “the conceit had been jolted out,” and who had been made to see that even his “nigger had the longest head of the two.”