The man hesitated, but a nervous motion in Jack’s arm caused him to take off his coat somewhat promptly.

“I’ll go into the house,” said Rollo, humbly.

“No!” said Jack, sternly, “Strip where you are. Quick!”

Rollo continued to divest himself of his garments, until there was nothing left to remove.

“Here, François,” said Jack, “take these things away. Now, sir, you may go.”

Rollo took up his bundle and went into the hut, thoroughly crestfallen, to re-clothe himself in his old garments, while Jack strolled into the woods to meditate on his strange fortunes.

That was the end of Rollo. He embarked in a canoe with an Indian and went off—no one knew whither. So, the wicked and useless among men wander about this world to annoy their fellows for a time—to pass away and be forgotten. Perhaps some of them, through God’s mercy, return to their right minds. We cannot tell.

According to instructions, Jack made over the charge of his establishment that day to the clerk who had been sent down to take charge, and next morning set out for Fort Kamenistaquoia, in the boat with the shipwrecked seamen.

Misfortune attended him even to the last minute. The new clerk, who chanced to be an enthusiastic young man, had resolved to celebrate his own advent and his predecessor’s departure by firing a salute from an old carronade which stood in front of the fort, and which might, possibly, have figured at the battle of the Nile. He overcharged this gun, and, just as the boat pushed off, applied the match. The result was tremendous. The gun burst into a thousand pieces, and the clerk was laid flat on the sand! Of course the boat was run ashore immediately, and Jack sprang out and hastened to the scene of the disaster, which he reached just as the clerk, recovering from the effects of the shock, managed to sit up.

He presented a wonderful appearance! Fortunately, none of the flying pieces of the gun had touched him, but a flat tin dish, full of powder, from which he had primed the piece, had exploded in his face. This was now of a uniform bluish-black colour, without eyelashes or eyebrows, and surmounted by a mass of frizzled material that had once been the unfortunate youth’s hair.