But no response was deigned by my darky visitor. I challenged again, and again, with the same result, the object still retaining its position, and regarding me with the same complacent look--when my comrade, who heard my first challenge came up, and inquired what the matter was, just as I was about bringing my piece to 'present' to fire. I pointed to the object of my challenging, who still kept his ground in the same position. He laughed at what he supposed was a joke I was trying to come on him--not being able to see anything in the spot I pointed out,--and resumed his beat. The thought then occurred to me for the first time that what I saw was not real. What then was it? I asked myself. Surely I am not troubled with that disease known as 'nigger on the brain!' And I again leaned against the trunk of the fallen tree to think the subject over, all the while keeping my eyes fixed upon the object of my thoughts, which stood the scrutiny unmoved. Now, I am not superstition by nature, and still less so by education and experience,--and so I viewed the apparition without a particle of fear or awe, and tried to account to myself for its appearance in the most natural and rational manner. I came to the conclusion there and then, that want of rest and the stimulation of the coffee and tobacco I had been indulging in unduly excited my brain, which produced the hallucination, on the same principle that it is produced in certain stages of drunkenness, called delirium tremens. This was a very fair deduction; but still in front of me stood the grinning darky, as plainly as before. I thought then I would test the unreality of the apparition in another way. If it were an optical illusion, the figure must recede as I advanced, or follow as I retreated. I accordingly advanced towards it; but, strange to say, it remained in the same spot, until I was within arm's length, when stretching forth my hand I grasped--nothing. I walked over the exact spot where the figure stood, and returned to my old stand, to be still more puzzled to see the figure in the same spot, with the same expression on its countenance, but with _both_ arms hanging down by its side this time. More puzzled still, I retreated to see if it would follow; but no--there it stood still gazing after me. I took three or four turns up and down my beat, and on each return to the fallen tree beheld the figure in the same position as last seen. I then halted, determined to watch if other changes would manifest themselves in shadowy being before me. My comrade came towards me again, and I reiterated my former tale of the apparition. Still he couldn't see it. But, as I was yet talking of it, and still persisting I saw it, the phantom darky disappeared--not suddenly, but seeming to melt away gradually. "He vanished in the darkness, like a beam Of cold, gray moonlight in a wintry stream."