.

Bonaventure moves back and leans against a paling fence, pallid and
faint. But there is no time to notice him--look, look!

Some women on horseback come trotting into the street. Cheers! cheers!
and in a moment louder cheers yet--the caleche with the bride and
groom and another with the parents have come.

Throw open the church door!

Horsemen alight, horsewomen descend; down, also, come they that were
in the caleche. Look, Bonaventure! They form by twos--forward--in they
go. "Hats off, gentlemen! Don't forget the rule!--Now--silence!
softly, softly; speak low--or speak not at all; sh-sh! Silence! The
pair are kneeling. Hush-sh! Frown down that little buzz about the
door! Sh-sh!"

Bonaventure has rushed in with the crowd. He cannot see the kneeling
pair; but there is the cure standing over them and performing the holy
rite. The priest stops--he has seen Bonaventure! He stammers, and then
he goes on. Here beside Bonaventure is a girl so absorbed in the scene
that she thinks she is speaking to her brother, when presently she
says to the haggard young stranger, letting herself down from her
tiptoes and drawing a long breath:

"_La sarimonie est fait._"

It is true; the ceremony is ended. She rises on tiptoe again to see
the new couple sign the papers.

Slowly! The bridegroom first, his mark. Step back. Now the little
bride--steady! Zosephine, _sa marque_. She turns; see her, everybody;
see her! brown and pretty as a doe! They are kissing her. Hail, Madame
'Thanase!

"Make way, make way!" The man and wife come forth.--Ah! 'Thanase
Beausoleil, so tall and strong, so happy and hale, you do not look
to-day like the poor decoyed, drugged victim that woke up one morning
out in the Gulf of Mexico to find yourself, without fore-intent or
knowledge, one of a ship's crew bound for Brazil and thence to the
Mediterranean!--"Make way, make way!" They mount the caleches,
Sosthene after Madame Sosthene; 'Thanase after Madame 'Thanase. "To
horse, ladies and gentlemen!" Never mind now about the youth who has
been taken ill in the chapel, and whom the cure has borne almost
bodily in his arms to his own house. "Mount! Mount! Move aside for the
wedding singers!"--The wedding singers take their places, one on this
side the bridal caleche, the other on that, and away it starts,
creaking and groaning.

"_Mais, arretez!_--Stop, stop! Before going, _passez le
'nisette_!--pass the anisette!" May the New-Orleans compounder be
forgi