“You all hain’t sayin’ ’t’ain’t goin’ t’ happen?”
“Hain’t sayin’ nothin’.”
“Oh, look ayonder. There it are.”
Sure enough, there was the ghost. With his waving gown all gleaming yellow with light, his shining red eyes, his dark face and his lugubrious rattle accompanied now and then by a piercing wail, Johnny’s ghost seemed more fearsome than before.
The chicleros grew suddenly silent. Even the sighing palms ceased to sigh and the last scream of a parrot died a sudden death.
It was an awesome moment. In that moment a strange thing happened. Instead of hovering there above the palms, the ghost began to rise. As he rose the dull rattle, as of bones in a coffin, increased in volume, and the wail, high-pitched and terrifying, rose to a piercing scream.
Then, more terrible than all, as he rose higher and higher, his red eyes grew dimmer, his glowing robes melted into the floating clouds, his scream sounded fainter and fainter.
“Oh, my Massa!” groaned the black man who but a moment before had professed little fear of the ghost. “Oh, my Massa!” he wailed, rolling on the ground in his agony of fear. “Oh, my Massa, he’s gone! It’s his last warnin’. He’s gone up. Now death and disaster sure do come!”
As if in proof of this, there came from far in the distance the dull roll of thunder.
As for Pant, he hastened to his dugout and paddled rapidly across the river. His mind was in a whirl. What had happened? He wanted to know, needed to know, badly indeed. Not so badly, however, but that he had time to pause and listen as the dip-dip of paddles sounded over the hushed waters of Rio Hondo. As he waited and watched black streaks passed down the river.