d with the fright, and hardly yet
knowing where he was or what had happened.

"My golly!" cried Sam, thinking him another ghost. "Lor' sakes! Massa
Duppy, do forgib me! I'll nebbah do so moah, I'se swarr I'll nebbah do
so no moah!"

"Wa-all, I'm jiggered!" ejaculated Hiram, on the two of us coming
against him with a thump, nearly knocking him again off his legs, as we
scrambled to ours. "What in thunder dew this air muss mean?
Jee-rusalem--it beats creation, it dew!"

Neither Sam nor I could get out a word; but, while we all stared, out of
breath and speechless with astonishment, at each other, another wild
shout of laughter came right over our heads from within the cave above,
and I heard Tom's voice exclaiming, as before--

"Ho-ho-ho! you'll be the death o' me sure, sonnies! I never seed sich a
go in my life! Hang it all--Charley and Hiram, and you, Sambo--why,
it's only me! Ho-ho-ho! I shall bust meself, if you go staring round
and wool-gathering like that any longer! Ho-ho-ho! this is a game, and
no mistake!"

With that, the three of us looked up, and now saw Tom Bullover standing
on top of the plateau in front of the cave, with a sort of long white
sheet like a piece of sailcloth round him, and Sam's banjo in one hand.

Then, the real facts of the case flashed on my mind in a moment, and I
could not help joining in the carpenter's hearty merriment at the way in
which he had humbugged us all.

"Oh, Tom!" I cried; "so it was you, after all?"

"Yes; ho-ho! Charley; yes, my lad. Ho-ho-ho!"

"Guess I don't see nuthin' to snigger over!" growled Hiram, shamefaced
at being so readily imposed on; but he was too good a sailor to mind a
joke against himself, and the comicality of the situation striking him,
too, like me, he was soon laughing as loudly as Tom and I.

Sam only needed this further secession likewise to set him off, his
negro nature possessing the hysterical features of his race, and going
readily from one extreme to the other.

A second before he had been paralysed with fright; now he was as
instantly convulsed with glee.

"My gosh!" he yelled, showing his ivories as his whole face expanded
into one big guffaw that utterly eclipsed all our attempts at merriment.
"Hoo-hoo, yah-yah! Dat am prime, Cholly--black ghost fo' whitey!
Hoo-hoo, yah-yah! I'se die a-laffin', like Tom! Black ghost fo'
whitey!--Hoo-hoo, yah-yah, hoo-hoo! Golly! Dat am prime, fo' suah!"

Sam's negro abandon and