It's something coming out of the sycamores."
"Don't, Tom!"
"It's terrible tall!"
"Oh, lordy-lordy! let's--"
"Keep still--it's a-coming this way."
He was so excited he could hardly get breath enough to whisper. I had to look. I couldn't help it. So now we was both on our knees with our chins on a fence rail and gazing--yes, and gasping too. It was coming down the road--coming in the shadder of the trees, and you couldn't see it good; not till it was pretty close to us; then it stepped into a bright splotch of moonlight and we sunk right down in our tracks--it was Jake Dunlap's ghost! That was what we said to ourselves.
We couldn't stir for a minute or two; then it was gone We talked about it in low voices. Tom says:
"They're mostly dim and smoky, or like they're made out of fog, but this one wasn't."
"No," I says; "I seen the goggles and the whiskers perfectly plain."
"Yes, and the very colors in them loud countrified Sunday clothes--plaid breeches, green and black--"
"Cotton velvet westcot, fire-red and yaller squares--"
"Leather straps to the bottoms of the breeches legs and one of them hanging unbottoned--"
"Yes, and that hat--"
"What a hat for a ghost to wear!"
You see it was the first season anybody wore that kind--a black sitff-brim stove-pipe, very high, and not smooth, with a round top--just like a sugar-loaf.
"Did you notice if its hair was the same, Huck?"
"No--seems to me I did, then again it seems to me I didn't."
"I didn't either; but it had its bag along, I noticed that."
"So did I. How can there be a ghost-bag, Tom?"
"Sho! I wouldn't be as ignorant as that if I was you, Huck Finn. Whatever a ghost has, turns to ghost-stuff. They've got to have their things, like anybody else. You see, yourself, that its clothes was turned to ghost-stuff. Well, then, what's to hender its bag from turning, too? Of course it done it."
That was reasonable. I couldn't find no fault with it. Bill Withers and his brother Jack come along by, talking, and Jack says:
"What do you reckon he was toting?"
"I dunno; but it was pretty heavy."
"Yes, all he could lug. Nigger stealing corn from old Parson Silas, I judged."
"So did I. And so I allowed I wouldn't let on to see him."
"That's me, too."
Then they both laughed, and went on out of hearing. It showed how unpopular old Uncle Silas had got to be now. They wouldn't 'a' let a nigger steal anybody else's corn and never done anything to him.
We heard some more voices mumbling along towards us and getting louder, and sometimes a cackle of a laugh. It was Lem Beebe and Jim Lane. Jim Lane says:
"Who?--Jubiter Dunlap?"
"Yes."
"Oh, I don't know. I reckon so. I seen him spading up some ground along about an hour ago, just before sundown--him and the parson. Said he guessed he wouldn't go to-night, but we could have his dog if we wanted him."
"Too tired, I reckon."
"Yes--works so hard!"
"Oh, you bet!"
They cackled at that, and went on by. Tom said we better jump out and tag along after them, because they was going our way and it wouldn't be comfortable to run across the ghost all by ourselves. So we done it, and got home all right.
That night was the second of September--a Saturday. I sha'n't ever forget it. You'll see why, pretty soon .
CHAPTER VI. PLANS TO SECURE THE DIAMONDS
WE tramped along behind Jim and Lem till we come to the back stile where old Jim's cabin was that he was captivated in, the time we set him free, and here come the dogs piling around us to say howdy, and there was the lights of the house, too; so we warn't afeard any more, and was going to climb over, but Tom says:
"Hold on; set down here a minute. By George!"
"What's the matter?" says I.
"Matter enough!" he says. "Wasn't you expecting we would be the first to tell the family who it is that's been killed yonder in the sycamores, and all about them rapscallions that done it, and about the di'monds they've smouched off of the corpse, and paint it up fine, and have the glory of being the ones that knows a lot more about it than anybody else?"
"Why, of course.