As it seemed to Sandy, he saw
himself hurrying along in front of himself toward the house. Possibly
the muddled condition of Sandy's intellect had so affected his judgment
as to vitiate any conclusion he might draw, but Sandy was quite sober
enough to perceive that the figure ahead of him wore his best clothes
and looked exactly like him, but seemed to be in something more of a
hurry, a discrepancy which Sandy at once corrected by quickening his own
pace so as to maintain as nearly as possible an equal distance between
himself and his double. The situation was certainly an incomprehensible
one, and savored of the supernatural.
"Ef dat's me gwine 'long in front," mused Sandy, in vinous perplexity,
"den who is dis behin' here? Dere ain' but one er me, an' my ha'nt wouldn'
leave my body 'tel I wuz dead. Ef dat's me in front, den I mus' be my
own ha'nt; an' whichever one of us is de ha'nt, de yuther must be dead
an' don' know it. I don' know what ter make er no sech gwines-on, I
don't. Maybe it ain' me after all, but it certainly do look lack me."
When the apparition disappeared in the house by the side door, Sandy
stood in the yard for several minutes, under the shade of an elm-tree,
before he could make up his mind to enter the house. He took courage,
however, upon the reflection that perhaps, after all, it was only the
bad liquor he had drunk. Bad liquor often made people see double.
He entered the house. It was dark, except for a light in Tom Delamere's
room.
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