It was first discovered by the hostler, and where it came from he couldn’t tell. It walked past him, and out at the door toward the place where the men were at work in the field. These--there were three of them--thought they recognised in it an old friend from whom they had long been separated, and throwing down their hoes they hurried toward the figure, extending their hands and crying out: “How do, Uncle Jordan!” But the figure paid no attention to them, and it finally dawned upon the negroes that it was not Jordan after all, but his spirit, which had come back to visit the scenes with which the faithful slave had been familiar while in the flesh. After that the figure had all the room it wanted. The negroes backed off and watched it as it walked slowly about the barn-yard, and finally disappeared behind one of the corn-cribs. They waited for it to appear again, but as it did not, one of the boldest ventured to draw near and peep around the corner of the crib. There was no one in sight. This made it evident that the object they had seen was a spirit, and nothing else; for if it had been a human being, it could not have got out from behind the corn-crib without being seen by some of the watchful negroes. The crib joined the barn, and there was no entrance to either of the buildings on that side that could be made available, except the door, and that could be seen through the front doors, which stood wide open. There was a window which opened into a storeroom in the barn, but it was securely nailed, and had not been opened for a number of years. The negroes told this extraordinary story in low tones, and rolled the whites of their eyes and trembled and gave other indications that their minds were in a very unsettled state, and that a very small thing would get up a first-class panic among them. As Dan listened the cold chills crept all over him, and his hair seemed to stand on end. What then must have been his terror when one of the negroes suddenly clapped his hands and shrieked: “Good Lord a mussy, look down on us poor, miserable niggers! Dar he is now!” CHAPTER XI. OLD JORDAN SHOWS HIMSELF. This startling announcement was accompanied by such strange contortions on the part of the negro who made it, that Dan was completely unnerved, and would have taken to his heels in short order, had he not suddenly lost all control over himself. His whole body seemed weighed down with iron. He did, however, manage to turn his head and look in the direction in which his sable companions were gazing, and sure enough, there he was--an old, rheumatic negro, bent half double with age, and dressed in that peculiar costume so common among field negroes before the war. He leaned heavily upon a staff--which, however, he planted firmly, almost viciously on the ground with every step, as if there was plenty of strength left in his old arm--and walked in that indescribable manner which no one ever saw attempted by anybody except a plantation negro.