The light was supplied ostensibly by two tallow dips, but in reality by the glowing wood embers of the great open stove bricked into one side of the wall.
Five or six excited negroes were grouped in a circle about a woman with a yellow turban on her head, who was rocking back and forth and shouting at intervals: "Oh-h, dere's sperrits in de air! I can smell um.

I can smell um." "Nancy!" called the Colonel sharply as we stepped into the room.
Nancy paused a moment and turned upon us a pair of frenzied eyes with nothing much but the whites showing.
"Marse Cunnel, dere's sperrits in de air," she cried.

"Sabe yuhself while dere's time.

We's all a-treadin' de road to destruction." "You'll be treading the road to destruction in mighty short order if you don't keep still," he returned grimly.

"Now stop this foolishness and tell me what's gone with that chicken." After a great deal of questioning and patching together, we finally got her story, but I cannot say that it threw much light upon the matter.
She had put the chicken in the oven, and then she felt powerful queer, as if something were going to happen.