"Is it saved?" she asked, when at length she opened her eyes. Captain Doc, thinking her mind was wandering, raised her head, and pointed to the river, now ablaze with light. "See," said he. "See the steamboats loaded with burning cotton, and the great ship meeting them; that is a Yankee gunboat! See, it is passing." "And you didn't shoot? And are the people glad?" "No, we didn't shoot. You fell and got hurt at the dark turn by the acacia bushes, where you hang your little lantern on dark nights. Some one ought to have hung one for you to-night. How did it happen, child?" "It didn't happen. I did it on purpose. I knew if I got hurt you would stop and cure me, and not fire at the boats. I wanted to save--to save the plan--" While the little old man raised a glass to the child's lips his hand shook, and something like a sob escaped him. "Listen, little one," he whispered, while his lips quivered. "I am an old fool, but not a fiend--not a devil. Not a gun would have fired. I wet all the powder. I didn't want anybody to say the Riffraffs flinched at the last minute. But you--oh, my God!" His voice sank even lower. "You have given your young life for my folly." She understood. "I haven't got any pain--only--I can't move. I thought I'd get hurt worse than I am--and not so much. I feel as if I were going up--and up--through the red--into the blue. And the moon is coming sideways to me. And her face--it is in it--just like the picture." She cast her eyes about the room as if half conscious of her surroundings. "Will they--will they love me now?" Mrs. Magwire, sobbing aloud, fell upon her knees beside the bed. "God love her, the heavenly child!" she wailed. "She was niver intinded for this worrld. Sure, an' I love ye, darlint, jist the same as Mary Ann an' Kitty--an' betther, too, to make up the loss of yer own mother, God rest her." Great tears rolled down the cheeks of the dying child, and that heavenly light which seems a forecast of things unseen shone from her brilliant eyes. She laid her thin hand upon Mrs. Magwire's head, buried now upon the bed beside her. "Lay the little blanket on me, please--when I go--" She turned her eyes upon the sky. "She worked it for me--the 'Darling' on it. The moon is coming again--sideways. It is her face." So, through the red of the fiery sky, up into the blue, passed the pure spirit of little Saint Idyl. * * * * * The river seemed afire now with floating chariots of flame. Slowly, majestically, upward into this fiery sea rode the fleet. Although many of the negroes had run frightened into the woods, the conflagration revealed an almost unbroken line on either side of the river, watching the spectacular pageant with awe-stricken, ashy faces. At Bijou a line of men--not the Riffraffs--sat astride the cannon, over the mouths of which they hung their hats or coats.