Prisoners of Chance

"Alphonse!" I called, careful to modulate my voice. "Wake up, you black sleepy-head! Ay! I have you at last in the world again. Now stop blinking, and pay heed to what I say. Do you chance to know where, for love, money, or any consideration, you could lay hands on olives in this town?"

The fellow, scarcely awake, rolled up the whites of his eyes for a moment, and scratched his woolly pate, as if seeking vainly to conjure up some long-neglected memory. Then his naturally good-humored countenance relaxed into a broad grin.

"Fo' de Lord, yas sah! I'se your man dis time suah 'nough. Dat fat ol' Dutchman, down by de Tehoupitoulas Gate, suah as you're born had a whole barrel ob dem yesterday. I done disremember fer de minute, boss, jist whar I done saw dem olibs, but I reckon as how de money 'd fotch 'em all right."

I drew forth a handful of French coins.

"Then run for it, lad!" I exclaimed in some excitement. "Your master's life hangs upon your speed--hold, wait! do you remember that old tumble-down shed we passed on our way here; the one which had once been a farrier's shop?"

The negro nodded, his eyes filled with awakened interest.

"Good; then first of all bring me a suit of the worst looking old clothes you can scare up in the negro quarters of this town. Leave them there. Then go directly to this Dutchman's, buy every olive he has for sale at any price, load them into a boat--a common huckster's boat, mind you, and remain there with them until I come. Do you understand all that?"

"Yas, Massa; I reckon as how I kin do dat all right 'nough." The fellow grinned, every white ivory showing between his thick red lips.

"Don't stop to speak to any one, black or white. Now trot along lively, and may the Lord have mercy on you if you fail me, for I pledge you I shall have none."

I watched him disappear up the street in a sort of swinging dog-trot, took one more glance backward at the huge war-ship, now swinging by her cable silent and mysterious as ever, and turned away from the river front, my brain teeming with a scheme upon the final issue of which hung life or death.