“O, pop!” cried Dan, “it’s come. We did see it that night.”
“What’s come, an’ what night did we see it?”
“Why, ole Jordan’s haunt,” gasped Dan. “I seed him jest now in broad daylight—I did, as sure’s I’m settin’ on this yere bench tellin’ ye—an’ thar was others seed him too; an’ thar was that eye of his’n in the middle of his head, an’ it kept a flickerin’ an’ a winkin’ jest as it done that night in the dark. O, my soul!”
Godfrey hardly knew what to do with himself, so terrified and astounded was he. He took his pipe out of his mouth, jumped up from the bench, and looked all around as if he were trying to make up his mind which way to run first.
“O, it ain’t a comin’ here,” said Dan, who could tell by these movements what his father was thinking about. “It done went into the gen’ral’s barn. It’s got a hidin’-place in thar.”
These words reassured Godfrey, who being satisfied that the terrible apparition was at a safe distance, seated himself on the bench again, and began to question Dan. He hoped that the boy was mistaken, and that his very lively imagination had converted a stump or some other object he had seen in the woods, into what he supposed to be old Jordan’s ghost; but Dan gave his evidence in such a way, and was so very positive on every point on which his father asked information, that Godfrey was obliged to believe that he had seen something wonderful. Perhaps after the reader hears Dan’s story he will believe it too. We will follow him, but tell it in our way.
Dan said he had had better luck in the woods that morning than he usually did—the bunch of squirrels he exhibited, and to which he had held fast during his headlong flight, proved that statement—and having shot all the game he wanted, he was coming home by way of the general’s lane. He saw the hostler and two or three other negroes standing in front of the barn, and when he came up he found that they were holding an earnest consultation, and that they were all more or less frightened. Dan at once inquired into the cause of their alarm, and was informed that something very strange and mysterious had just happened. The hostler was busy with his usual duties in the barn, and the others were at work in the field close by, when a queer-looking object suddenly made its appearance among them. It was dressed in a suit of white cottonade, and looked and acted like an old, decrepit negro; but it could not have been that, for if it had been, it would have returned some of the numerous greetings that were addressed to it. Besides, it did not seem to hear or see anything.
It was first discovered by the hostler, and where it came from he couldn’t tell. It walked past him, and out at the door toward the place where the men were at work in the field. These—there were three of them—thought they recognised in it an old friend from whom they had long been separated, and throwing down their hoes they hurried toward the figure, extending their hands and crying out: “How do, Uncle Jordan!” But the figure paid no attention to them, and it finally dawned upon the negroes that it was not Jordan after all, but his spirit, which had come back to visit the scenes with which the faithful slave had been familiar while in the flesh. After that the figure had all the room it wanted. The negroes backed off and watched it as it walked slowly about the barn-yard, and finally disappeared behind one of the corn-cribs. They waited for it to appear again, but as it did not, one of the boldest ventured to draw near and peep around the corner of the crib. There was no one in sight.
This made it evident that the object they had seen was a spirit, and nothing else; for if it had been a human being, it could not have got out from behind the corn-crib without being seen by some of the watchful negroes. The crib joined the barn, and there was no entrance to either of the buildings on that side that could be made available, except the door, and that could be seen through the front doors, which stood wide open. There was a window which opened into a storeroom in the barn, but it was securely nailed, and had not been opened for a number of years.
The negroes told this extraordinary story in low tones, and rolled the whites of their eyes and trembled and gave other indications that their minds were in a very unsettled state, and that a very small thing would get up a first-class panic among them. As Dan listened the cold chills crept all over him, and his hair seemed to stand on end. What then must have been his terror when one of the negroes suddenly clapped his hands and shrieked: