Again the twang of the horn was heard, and, as its echoes rolled back through the hills, the mysterious blazing star was seen to glide away through the heavens and disappear in a moment behind the mountain range.
“That is a mystery that is not the agency of man,” said the colonel.
“Oh, Lor’! I tell ye, Massa Sanfor’, our time am come! Dat war de horn ob de ark-angel wakin’ up de dead.”
“You’re a fool, Ebony; you’ve lost all the courage you ever did possess.”
“I knows I’s a fool, massa, but I’s been a wicked nigger, and de world am comin’ to a eend, and oh, Lor’ ob Heabens! dar comes de Ole Nick—de Ole Nick!—de Ole Nick! after dis chile—oh—oh—oh!”
Ebony stretched out his hands as if to keep off some horrible object. His eyes were lifted upward and glared like those of a madman. His lips stood slightly apart, revealing his firm-set teeth, and his features were convulsed with horror.
“Ebony! Ebony! are you going mad?” exclaimed Sanford, excitedly.
The negro moved not a muscle nor his uplifted eyes, but, at that instant, a fierce and terrible scream burst over the heads of the little group. All started and lifted their eyes upward, and as they did so, every face became blanched with terror. They saw what Ebony saw, and startled as he did. They saw not a human nor a beast, but an awful, terrible figure—a figure resembling a human skeleton floating through the air, high over the tree-tops, its ghastly proportions revealed by the smoke and flame emitted from the sunken eyes, the distended nostrils and the wide, grinning mouth. Great white arms beat and buffeted the air like the wings of a struggling vampire, while scream after scream pealed wild and unearthly from the horrid creature’s lips. It was fully a hundred feet above the tree-tops and moved swiftly—so swift, that in a moment it had floated over the camp and disappeared behind the dark hills.
The party stood transfixed with horror. Colonel Sanford was the first to break the silence.
“In the name of God, what was it?” he gasped.