This rational explanation passed from lip to lip and was generally accepted. The coming night was looked forward to in deep apprehension, and by none more than by Perkins. Indeed, his fears so got the better of him that when the hands quit work he started for the nearest tavern and there remained till morning. Chunk was made aware of this fact, and the night passed in absolute quiet. All the negroes not in the secret now hoped that the overseer was the sole prey of the spook, and that if they remained quietly in their places they would be unmolested. Chunk and a few of the boldest of his fellow conspirators had full scope therefore to perfect their final arrangements. In a disused room of one of the outbuildings the most ragged and blood-stained uniforms of the Union soldiers had been cast and forgotten. These were carried to a point near the burying-ground, tried on and concealed. Chunk found it was no easy task to keep even the reckless fellows he had picked up to the sticking point of courage in the grewsome tasks he had in view, but his scoff, together with their mutual aid and comfort, carried them through, while the hope of speedy freedom inspired them to what was felt to be great risks. On this occasion he dismissed them some little time before midnight, for he wished them to get rested and in good condition for what he hoped would be the final effort the following night. As he lingered in the still, starlit darkness he could not resist making an effort to see Zany, and so began hooting like an owl down by the run, gradually approaching nearer till he reached the garden. Zany, wakeful and shivering with nameless dread, was startled by the sound. Listening intently, she soon believed she detected a note that was Chunk's and not a bird's. Her first impression was that her lover had discovered that he could not go finally away without her and so had returned. Her fear of spooks was so great that her impulse was to run away with Chunk as far from that haunted plantation as he would take her. Trembling like a wind-shaken leaf, she stole into the garden shrubbery and whispered, "Chunk?" "Hi! yere I is." There was no tantalizing coquetry in Zany's manner now. In a moment she was in Chunk's arms sobbing, "Tek me way off fum dis place. I go wid you now, dis berry minute, en I neber breve easy till we way, way off enywhar, I doan keer whar. Oh, Chunk, you doan know w'at been gwine on en I darsn't tell you twel we gits way off." "I isn't feared," replied Chunk easily. "Dat's kaze you doan know. I des been tremblin' stiddy sence las' night en I'se feared hit begin eny minute now." "Hit woan begin dis yere night," replied Chunk, soothingly and incautiously. "How you know?" she asked quickly, a sudden suspicion entering her mind. "Wat's ter begin?" answered Chunk, now on his guard. "De night am still, nobody roun'. I hang roun' a few nights twel I study out de bes' plan ter git away."