“It’s all right,” thought Don. “If they can’t recognise me in the daytime, I am sure Godfrey Evans will not know me in the dark. I believe if I should go into the house I could fool everybody there.”
Scarcely able to control himself, so great was his desire to laugh, Don kept straight on toward the negroes, who had dropped their hoes and were hurrying up to shake hands with him. His silence seemed to surprise them greatly. They stopped short, looked curiously at him first, then suspiciously, and after exchanging a few words that Don could not hear, began backing out of his way.
“’Tain’t ole Jordan, nudder,” suddenly exclaimed one of the negroes.
“O, hush yer noise, boy,” said another. “Don’t I know dot ole white coat, an’ dot plug hat dot ole marse guv him on dot Christmas day, jest ’fore he went away to de wah? Yes, I does.”
“No odds,” replied the one who had first spoken. “’Tain’t ole Jordan. He’s dead, an’ dis is his haunt.” These words were all that were needed to frighten the superstitious field-hands almost out of their senses. They did not go into a panic and run, as Don hoped they would, but retreated out of his way and watched him from a distance, looking at one another now and then, and shaking their heads and acting altogether as if they were at their wits’ end. Don took a short turn about the field—he did not dare to stay out there very long for fear of being seen by somebody in the house—and then turned toward the barn again.
As soon as the corn-crib hid him from the gaze of the negroes, he straightened up and ran swiftly to the window that opened into old Jordan’s room. Throwing back the shutter he scrambled through as quickly as he could, and shutting himself in, laid down on old Jordan’s bed and shook all over with suppressed laughter. He heard the footsteps and the voices of the negroes as they passed around the barn, looking for him; and the few words of their conversation which he overheard satisfied him that his experiment had been a decided success. He must have imitated old Jordan perfectly to be taken for him in broad daylight.
CHAPTER XV.
A JOKE THAT WAS NO JOKE.
WE have already described the other tests to which Don put his disguise during the forenoon, and we know that every one who saw him believed him to be old Jordan’s ghost. Godfrey, especially, was greatly alarmed, and Don had the satisfaction of seeing him run, which was a sight worth going miles to behold. The magical manner in which he appeared and vanished, was very bewildering to all who witnessed it; but it would have been no mystery at all, had they been aware that the window that led into old Jordan’s room was unfastened. As they could see nothing of Don after he went behind the corn-crib, they naturally concluded that he had vanished into thin air. In no other way could they account for his disappearance.