certain onslaughts made upon
them by officers of the law, some of the smugglers became murderers. The
business became unprofitable for a time until the enterprising
Lafittes--thinkers--bethought them of a corrective--"privateering".

Thereupon the United States Government set a price upon their heads.
Later yet it became known that these outlawed pirates had been offered
money and rank by Great Britain if they would join her standard, then
hovering about the water-approaches to their native city, and that they
had spurned the bribe; wherefore their heads were ruled out of the
market, and, meeting and treating with Andrew Jackson, they were
received as lovers of their country, and as compatriots fought in the
battle of New Orleans at the head of their fearless men, and--here
tradition takes up the tale--were never seen afterward.

Capitaine Lemaitre was not among the killed or wounded, but he was among
the missing.

CHAPTER IV.

THREE FRIENDS.

The roundest and happiest-looking priest in the city of New Orleans was
a little man fondly known among his people as Pere Jerome. He was a
Creole and a member of one of the city's leading families. His dwelling
was a little frame cottage, standing on high pillars just inside a tall,
close fence, and reached by a narrow out-door stair from the green
batten gate. It was well surrounded by crape myrtles, and communicated
behind by a descending stair and a plank-walk with the rear entrance of
the chapel over whose worshippers he daily spread his hands in
benediction. The name of the street--ah! there is where light is
wanting. Save the Cathedral and the Ursulines, there is very little of
record concerning churches at that time, though they were springing up
here and there. All there is certainty of is that Pere Jerome's frame
chapel was some little new-born "down-town" thing, that may have
survived the passage of years, or may have escaped "Paxton's Directory"
"so as by fire." His parlor was dingy and carpetless; one could smell
distinctly there the vow of poverty. His bed-chamber was bare and clean,
and the bed in it narrow and hard; but between the two was a dining-room
that would tempt a laugh to the lips of any who looked in. The table was
small, but stout, and all the furniture of the room substantial, made of
fine wood, and carved just enough to give the notion of wrinkling
pleasantry. His mother's and sister's doing, Pere Jerome would explain;
they would not perm