"It--it--it--sounds like poor Sam's banjo," I stammered out. "I--I--
hope he ha--ha--hasn't come to haunt us again!"
"Seems like," said he; and then, plucking up his courage, he started
once more for the mouth of the cave, I following close, like his shadow,
afraid to leave him now, because then I would be there by myself.
"Durned, though, if Sam's ghostess or any other cuss 'll kep me back
now. Come on, Cholly!"
But, when we got up to the entrance, we saw a sight that stopped us at
once, Hiram dropping to the ground as if he had been shot.
There, sitting on the very rock at the back which Tom Bullover had joked
about on the previous day as being the `ghost's pulpit' was the dim
apparition of a man, the very image of our whilom negro cook, leaning
back and playing the banjo, just as Sam used to do on board the _Denver
City_.
But, stranger still, even as I looked, a queer supernatural sort of
light suddenly illumined the interior of the cavern, and I saw another
apparition rise, as it were, out of the darkness, immediately behind the
one on the rock, the last spectral form raising its hand threateningly.
I stood there at the mouth of the cave, almost paralysed with terror,
watching the weird scene that was being enacted within, the wonderful
electrical glare making every detail come out in strong relief and
lighting up the whole place, so that it was as bright as day.
Not the slightest incident escaped my notice.
As the second apparition rose from behind the rock at the back of the
cavern, the first figure, which I had believed up to now really to be
the negro cook's ghost or spirit, permitted for some occult purpose or
other to revisit the earth, also jumped up out of the corner, dropping
the banjo incontinently.
Not only this, the original ghost, spirit, or what you will, displayed
an abject fright that was too real for any inhabitant of the other world
to assume; for the face of the ghost in an instant grew as long as my
arm, while its woolly hair crinkled up on top of its head until it
became erect and stiff as a wire brush.
At the same time, the eyes of this first `ghost,' distended with fear,
rolled round and round, the white eyeballs contrasting with the darker
skin of the face, which, however, appeared to have become of an ashy
grey colour, instead of black--though whether this was from the effects
of fear or owing to the peculiar light that shone full upon it I could
not tell, nor, indeed, puzzled my mind at the time to inquire.
The two figures thus confronted each other for about the space of a
second, the headless apparition rising and rising till it seemed to
touch the roof of the cave, when it extended its wide arms and made a
clutch at the other, and now trembling, figure in front.
This was too much for the banjo-playing spectre.
Uttering a wild yell that only a human throat could have emitted, and
with his mouth open as wide as the mouth of the cave towards which he
rushed, Sam Jedfoot--for it was his own substantial self, I saw, and no
ghost at all, as I was now convinced--cleared in two bounds the
intervening space that lay between him and the entrance to the cavern,
seeking to get away as far as possible from his terrible visitant.
Apparently, he must have thought the other to be the `genuine Simon
Pure,' come to punish him for his false pretences in making believe to
be a denizen of the spirit world whilst he was yet in the flesh, and so
poaching unlawfully on what was by right and title the proper domain of
the ghostal tribe!
In his hurry and haste, however, to avoid this avenging spectre, poor
Sam, naturally, did not see me standing in front of the cave blocking
the entrance, nor had I time to get out of his way, so as to avoid the
impetuous rush he made for the opening.
The consequences may be readily surmised.
He came against me full butt, and we both tumbled to the ground headlong
together all of a heap.
Sam thereupon imagined the terrible apparition to be clutching him, and
that his last hour had come.
"Oh, golly! De debbel's got me, de debbel's got me fo' suah!" he roared
out in an agony of terror, clawing at my clothes and nearly tearing the
shirt off my back in his attempts to regain his feet, as we rolled over
and over together down the decline towards the shore. "Lor', a mussy!
Do forgib me dis time, Massa Duppy, fo' play-actin' at ghostesses, an' I
promises nebber do so no moah! O Lor'! O Lor'! I'se a gone niggah!
Bress de Lor', fo' ebbah an' ebbah! Amen!"