“Here they are,” said Mrs. White, but her husband was gone.  Two or three hundred men and boys pass the place at a rapid walk straight down the broad, new street, toward the hated house of ghosts.  The din was terrific.  She saw little White at the head of the rabble brandishing his arms and trying in vain to make himself heard; but they only shook their heads laughing and hooting the louder, and so passed, bearing him on before them.

Swiftly they pass out from among the houses, away from the dim oil lamps of the street, out into the broad starlit commons, and enter the willowy jungles of the haunted ground.  Some hearts fail and their owners lag behind and turn back, suddenly remembering how near morning it is.  But the most part push on, tearing the air with their clamor.

Down ahead of them in the long, thicket-darkened way there is—­singularly enough—­a faint, dancing light.  It must be very near the old house; it is.  It has stopped now.  It is a lantern, and is under a well-known sapling which has grown up on the wayside since the canal was filled.  Now it swings mysteriously to and fro.  A goodly number of the more ghost-fearing give up the sport; but a full hundred move forward at a run, doubling their devilish howling and banging.

Yes; it is a lantern, and there are two persons under the tree.  The crowd draws near—­drops into a walk; one of the two is the old African mute; he lifts the lantern up so that it shines on the other; the crowd recoils; there is a hush of all clangor, and all at once, with a cry of mingled fright and horror from every throat, the whole throng rushes back, dropping every thing, sweeping past little White and hurrying on, never stopping until the jungle is left behind, and then to find that not one in ten has seen the cause of the stampede, and not one of the tenth is certain what it was.

There is one huge fellow among them who looks capable of any villany.  He finds something to mount on, and, in the Creole patois, calls a general halt.  Bienvenu sinks down, and, vainly trying to recline gracefully, resigns the leadership.  The herd gather round the speaker; he assures them that they have been outraged.  Their right peaceably to traverse the public streets has been trampled upon.  Shall such encroachments be endured?  It is now daybreak.  Let them go now by the open light of day and force a free passage of the public highway!

A scattering consent was the response, and the crowd, thinned now and drowsy, straggled quietly down toward the old house.  Some drifted ahead, others sauntered behind, but every one, as he again neared the tree, came to a stand-still.  Little White sat upon a bank of turf on the opposite side of the way looking very stern and sad.  To each new-comer he put the same question: 

“Did you come here to go to old Poquelin’s?”

“Yes.”

“He’s dead.”  And if the shocked hearer started away he would say:  “Don’t go away.”