He whiled away the time by aid of his jug and Job-like comforters till it began to grow late and he drowsy.
Suddenly Jute exclaimed, "Hi! Marse Perkins, w'at dat light dancin' up yon'er by de grabeyard?"
The overseer rose with a start, his hair rising also as he saw a fitful jack-o'-lantern gleam, appearing and disappearing on the cemetery hill. As had been expected, he obeyed his impulse, pouring down whiskey until he speedily rendered himself utterly helpless; but while his intoxication disabled him physically, it produced for a time an excited and disordered condition of mind in which he was easily imposed upon. Jute shook him and adjured him to get up, saying, "I years quar soun's comin' dis way."
When satisfied that their victim could make no resistance, Jute and companions pretended to start away in terror. Perkins tried to implore them to remain, but his lips seemed paralyzed. A few moments later a strange group entered the cottage—five figures dressed in Federal uniforms, hands and faces white and ghastly, and two carrying white cavalry sabres. Each one had its finger on its lips, but Perkins was beyond speech. In unspeakable horror he stared vacantly before him and remained silent and motionless. The ghostly shapes looked at him fixedly for a brief time, then at one another, and solemnly nodded. Next, four took him up and bore him out, the fifth following with the jug. At the door stood an immovably tall form, surmounted by a cavalry hat and wrapped in a long army overcoat.
"Leftenant Scoville!" gasped Perkins.
The figure, as if the joints of its back were near the ground, made a portentous inclination of assent and then pointed with another white sabre to the hill, leading the way. Perkins tried to shout for help, but his tongue seemed powerless, as in fact it was, from terror and liquor combined. He felt himself carried swiftly and, as he thought, surely, to some terrible doom.
At last his bearers stopped, and Perkins saw the mounds of the Union dead rising near. He now remembered in a confused way that one more grave had been dug than had proved necessary, and he uttered a low howl as he felt himself lowered into it. Instantly the tall figure which appeared to direct everything threatened him with a ghostly sabre, and an utter paralysis of unspeakable dread fell upon him.
For a few moments they all stood around and pointed at him with ghostly white fingers, then gradually receded until out of sight. After a time Perkins began to get his voice, when suddenly his tormentors appeared in terrible guise. Each white, ghostly face was lighted up as by a tongue of fire; terrible eyes gleamed from under wide-crowned cavalry hats and a voice was heard, in a sepulchral whisper, "Nex' time we come fer you, we bury you!"
At this instant came a flash of lightning, followed by a tremendous clap of thunder. The jaws of the figures dropped, the burning splinters of light-wood they carried dropping down into the grave, and on its half-lifeless occupant. The ghosts now disappeared finally—in fact took to their heels; all except Chunk, who secured the jug, nodded thrice portentously at Perkins and then retired also, not a little shaken in his nerves, but sufficiently self-controlled to rally his panic-stricken followers and get them to remove their disguises before wrapping their heads in blankets. Having removed and hidden all traces of the escapade he hooted for the alert Zany, who had been tremblingly on the watch in spite of her knowledge of what was going on. As she fled with Chunk before the coming storm she gasped between the gusts, "I declar, Chunk, sech doin's gwine ter brung a judgment."
Even Chunk inclined to this view for a time, as the lightning blazed from sky to earth, and the thunder cracked and roared overhead. The rain poured in such torrents that he feared Perkins might be drowned in the grave where he had been placed. As for Aun' Jinkey, she stared at her unexpected visitors in speechless perplexity and terror until the fury of the tempest had passed, their voices could be heard.