Chapter Thirty Four.
A Pretty Plot.
To dispute the identity was to doubt the evidence of my senses. The mulatto was before me—just as I remembered him—though with changed apparel, and perhaps grown a little bigger in body. But the features were the same—that tout ensemble the same as that presented by Yellow Jake, the ci-devant woodman of our plantation.
And yet how could it possibly be he? And in the company of Arens Ringgold too, one of the most active of his intended executioners? No, no, no! altogether improbable—utterly impossible! Then must I be deluded—my eyes deceiving me—for as certain as I looked upon man, I was looking upon Jake the mulatto! He was not twenty feet from where I lay hidden; his face was full towards me; the moon was shining upon it with a brilliancy scarcely inferior to the light of day. I could note the old expression of evil in his eyes, and mark the play of his features. It was Yellow Jake.
To confirm the impression, I remembered that, notwithstanding all remonstrance and ridicule, the black pertinaciously adhered to his story. He would listen to no compromise, no hypothesis founded upon resemblance. He had seen Yellow Jake, or his ghost. This was his firm belief, and I had been unable to shake it.
Another circumstance I now remember: the strange behaviour of the Ringgolds during the postprandial conversation—the action of Arens when I mentioned the mulatto’s name. It had attracted my attention at the time, but what was I to think now? Here was a man supposed to be dead, in company of three others who had been active in assisting at his death—one of them the very keenest of his executioners, and all four now apparently as thick as thieves! How was I to explain, in one moment, this wonderful resurrection and reconciliation?
I could not explain it—it was too complicated a mystery to be unravelled by a moment’s reflection; and I should have failed, had not the parties themselves soon after aided me to an elucidation.
I had arrived at the only natural conclusion, and this was, that the mulatto, notwithstanding the perfect resemblance, could not be Yellow Jake. This, of course, would account for everything, after a manner; and had the four men gone away without parley, I should have contented myself with this hypothesis.
But they went not, until after affording me an opportunity of overhearing a conversation, which gave me to know, that, not only was Yellow Jake still in the land of the living, but that Haj-Ewa had spoken the truth, when she told me my life was in danger.