A man stood upon a railroad bridge
in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below.
The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope
closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above
his head and the slack feel to the level of his knees. Some loose boards
laid upon the ties supporting the rails of the railway supplied a footing
for him and his executioners -- two private soldiers of the Federal army,
directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff.
At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the
uniform of his rank, armed. He was a captain. A sentinel at each end of
the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as "support," that
is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on
the forearm thrown straight across the chest -- a formal and unnatural
position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear to
be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the center of
the bridge; they merely blockaded the two ends of the foot planking that
traversed it.
Beyond one of the sentinels nobody
was in sight; the railroad ran straight away into a forest for a hundred
yards, then, curving, was lost to view. Doubtless there was an outpost
farther along. The other bank of the stream was open ground -- a gentle
slope topped with a stockade of vertical tree trunks, loopholed for rifles,
with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon
commanding the bridge. Midway up the slope between the bridge and fort
were the spectators -- a single company of infantry in line, at "parade
rest," the butts of their rifles on the ground, the barrels inclining slightly
backward against the right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock.
A lieutenant stood at the right of the line, the point of his sword upon
the ground, his left hand resting upon his right. Excepting the group of
four at the center of the bridge, not a man moved. The company faced the
bridge, staring stonily, motionless. The sentinels, facing the banks of
the stream, might have been statues to adorn the bridge. The captain stood
with folded arms, silent, observing the work of his subordinates, but making
no sign. Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received
with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with
him. In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of
deference.
The man who was engaged in being
hanged was apparently about thirty-five years of age. He was a civilian,
if one might judge from his habit, which was that of a planter. His features
were good -- a straight nose, firm mouth, broad forehead, from which his
long, dark hair was combed straight back, falling behind his ears to the
collar of his well fitting frock coat. He wore a moustache and pointed
beard, but no whiskers; his eyes were large and dark gray, and had a kindly
expression which one would hardly have expected in one whose neck was in
the hemp. Evidently this was no vulgar assassin. The liberal military code
makes provision for hanging many kinds of persons, and gentlemen are not
excluded.
The preparations being complete,
the two private soldiers stepped aside and each drew away the plank upon
which he had been standing. The sergeant turned to the captain, saluted
and placed himself immediately behind that officer, who in turn moved apart
one pace. These movements left the condemned man and the sergeant standing
on the two ends of the same plank, which spanned three of the cross-ties
of the bridge. The end upon which the civilian stood almost, but not quite,
reached a fourth. This plank had been held in place by the weight of the
captain; it was now held by that of the sergeant. At a signal from the
former the latter would step aside, the plank would tilt and the condemned
man go down between two ties. The arrangement commended itself to his judgement
as simple and effective. His face had not been covered nor his eyes bandaged.
He looked a moment at his "unsteadfast footing," then let his gaze wander
to the swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet. A piece
of dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down
the current. How slowly it appeared to move! What a sluggish stream!
He closed his eyes in order to fix
his last thoughts upon his wife and children. The water, touched to gold
by the early sun, the brooding mists under the banks at some distance down
the stream, the fort, the soldiers, the piece of drift -- all had distracted
him. And now he became conscious of a new disturbance. Striking through
the thought of his dear ones was sound which he could neither ignore nor
understand, a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a
blacksmith's hammer upon the anvil; it had the same ringing quality. He
wondered what it was, and whether immeasurably distant or near by -- it
seemed both. Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of
a death knell. He awaited each new stroke with impatience and -- he knew
not why -- apprehension. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer;
the delays became maddening. With their greater infrequency the sounds
increased in strength and sharpness. They hurt his ear like the trust of
a knife; he feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his
watch.
He unclosed his eyes and saw again
the water below him. "If I could free my hands," he thought, "I might throw
off the noose and spring into the stream. By diving I could evade the bullets
and, swimming vigorously, reach the bank, take to the woods and get away
home. My home, thank God, is as yet outside their lines; my wife and little
ones are still beyond the invader's farthest advance."
As these thoughts, which have here
to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed man's brain rather
than evolved from it the captain nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped
aside.
II
Peyton Fahrquhar was a well to do
planter, of an old and highly respected Alabama family. Being a slave owner
and like other slave owners a politician, he was naturally an original
secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern cause. Circumstances
of an imperious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented
him from taking service with that gallant army which had fought the disastrous
campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth, and he chafed under the inglorious
restraint, longing for the release of his energies, the larger life of
the soldier, the opportunity for distinction. That opportunity, he felt,
would come, as it comes to all in wartime. Meanwhile he did what he could.
No service was too humble for him to perform in the aid of the South, no
adventure to perilous for him to undertake if consistent with the character
of a civilian who was at heart a soldier, and who in good faith and without
too much qualification assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous
dictum that all is fair in love and war.
One evening while Fahrquhar and
his wife were sitting on a rustic bench near the entrance to his grounds,
a gray-clad soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water.
Mrs. Fahrquhar was only too happy to serve him with her own white hands.
While she was fetching the water her husband approached the dusty horseman
and inquired eagerly for news from the front.
"The Yanks are repairing the railroads,"
said the man, "and are getting ready for another advance. They have reached
the Owl Creek bridge, put it in order and built a stockade on the north
bank. The commandant has issued an order, which is posted everywhere, declaring
that any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels,
or trains will be summarily hanged. I saw the order."
"How far is it to the Owl Creek
bridge?" Fahrquhar asked.
"About thirty miles."
"Is there no force on this side
of the creek?"
"Only a picket post half a mile
out, on the railroad, and a single sentinel at this end of the bridge."
"Suppose a man -- a civilian and
student of hanging -- should elude the picket post and perhaps get the
better of the sentinel," said Fahrquhar, smiling, "what could he accomplish?"
The soldier reflected. "I was there
a month ago," he replied. "I observed that the flood of last winter had
lodged a great quantity of driftwood against the wooden pier at this end
of the bridge. It is now dry and would burn like tinder."
The lady had now brought the water,
which the soldier drank. He thanked her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband
and rode away. An hour later, after nightfall, he repassed the plantation,
going northward in the direction from which he had come. He was a Federal
scout.
III
As Peyton Fahrquhar fell straight
downward through the bridge he lost consciousness and was as one already
dead. From this state he was awakened -- ages later, it seemed to him --
by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his throat, followed by a sense of
suffocation. Keen, poignant agonies seemed to shoot from his neck downward
through every fiber of his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash
along well defined lines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivably
rapid periodicity. They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him
to an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothing
but a feeling of fullness -- of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied
by thought. The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced; he
had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion.
Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely the fiery heart,
without material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation,
like a vast pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light
about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash; a frightful roaring
was in his ears, and all was cold and dark. The power of thought was restored;
he knew that the rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There
was no additional strangulation; the noose about his neck was already suffocating
him and kept the water from his lungs. To die of hanging at the bottom
of a river! -- the idea seemed to him ludicrous. He opened his eyes in
the darkness and saw above him a gleam of light, but how distant, how inaccessible!
He was still sinking, for the light became fainter and fainter until it
was a mere glimmer. Then it began to grow and brighten, and he knew that
he was rising toward the surface -- knew it with reluctance, for he was
now very comfortable. "To be hanged and drowned," he thought, "that is
not so bad; but I do not wish to be shot. No; I will not be shot; that
is not fair."
He was not conscious of an effort,
but a sharp pain in his wrist apprised him that he was trying to free his
hands. He gave the struggle his attention, as an idler might observe the
feat of a juggler, without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort!
-- what magnificent, what superhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor!
Bravo! The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated upward, the hands
dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched them with a new
interest as first one and then the other pounced upon the noose at his
neck. They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations resembling
those of a water snake. "Put it back, put it back!" He thought he shouted
these words to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded
by the direst pang that he had yet experienced. His neck ached horribly;
his brain was on fire, his heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave
a great leap, trying to force itself out at his mouth. His whole body was
racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish! But his disobedient
hands gave no heed to the command. They beat the water vigorously with
quick, downward strokes, forcing him to the surface. He felt his head emerge;
his eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his chest expanded convulsively,
and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs engulfed a great draught
of air, which instantly he expelled in a shriek!
He was now in full possession of
his physical senses. They were, indeed, preternaturally keen and alert.
Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted
and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived.
He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they
struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual
trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf -- he saw the very insects
upon them: the locusts, the brilliant bodied flies, the gray spiders stretching
their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the
dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that
danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon flies'
wings, the strokes of the water spiders' legs, like oars which had lifted
their boat -- all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his
eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting the water.
He had come to the surface facing
down the stream; in a moment the visible world seemed to wheel slowly round,
himself the pivotal point, and he saw the bridge, the fort, the soldiers
upon the bridge, the captain, the sergeant, the two privates, his executioners.
They were in silhouette against the blue sky. They shouted and gesticulated,
pointing at him. The captain had drawn his pistol, but did not fire; the
others were unarmed. Their movements were grotesque and horrible, their
forms gigantic.
Suddenly he heard a sharp report
and something struck the water smartly within a few inches of his head,
spattering his face with spray. He heard a second report, and saw one of
the sentinels with his rifle at his shoulder, a light cloud of blue smoke
rising from the muzzle. The man in the water saw the eye of the man on
the bridge gazing into his own through the sights of the rifle. He observed
that it was a gray eye and remembered having read that gray eyes were keenest,
and that all famous marksmen had them. Nevertheless, this one had missed.
A counter-swirl had caught Fahrquhar
and turned him half round; he was again looking at the forest on the bank
opposite the fort. The sound of a clear, high voice in a monotonous singsong
now rang out behind him and came across the water with a distinctness that
pierced and subdued all other sounds, even the beating of the ripples in
his ears. Although no soldier, he had frequented camps enough to know the
dread significance of that deliberate, drawling, aspirated chant; the lieutenant
on shore was taking a part in the morning's work. How coldly and pitilessly
-- with what an even, calm intonation, presaging, and enforcing tranquility
in the men -- with what accurately measured interval fell those cruel words:
"Company! . . . Attention! . . .
Shoulder arms! . . . Ready! . . . Aim! . . . Fire!"
Fahrquhar dived -- dived as deeply
as he could. The water roared in his ears like the voice of Niagara, yet
he heard the dull thunder of the volley and, rising again toward the surface,
met shining bits of metal, singularly flattened, oscillating slowly downward.
Some of them touched him on the face and hands, then fell away, continuing
their descent. One lodged between his collar and neck; it was uncomfortably
warm and he snatched it out.
As he rose to the surface, gasping
for breath, he saw that he had been a long time under water; he was perceptibly
farther downstream -- nearer to safety. The soldiers had almost finished
reloading; the metal ramrods flashed all at once in the sunshine as they
were drawn from the barrels, turned in the air, and thrust into their sockets.
The two sentinels fired again, independently and ineffectually.
The hunted man saw all this over
his shoulder; he was now swimming vigorously with the current. His brain
was as energetic as his arms and legs; he thought with the rapidity of
lightning:
"The officer," he reasoned, "will
not make that martinet's error a second time. It is as easy to dodge a
volley as a single shot. He has probably already given the command to fire
at will. God help me, I cannot dodge them all!"
An appalling splash within two yards
of him was followed by a loud, rushing sound, DIMINUENDO, which seemed
to travel back through the air to the fort and died in an explosion which
stirred the very river to its deeps! A rising sheet of water curved over
him, fell down upon him, blinded him, strangled him! The cannon had taken
an hand in the game. As he shook his head free from the commotion of the
smitten water he heard the deflected shot humming through the air ahead,
and in an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in the forest
beyond.
"They will not do that again," he
thought; "the next time they will use a charge of grape. I must keep my
eye upon the gun; the smoke will apprise me -- the report arrives too late;
it lags behind the missile. That is a good gun."
Suddenly he felt himself whirled
round and round -- spinning like a top. The water, the banks, the forests,
the now distant bridge, fort and men, all were commingled and blurred.
Objects were represented by their colors only; circular horizontal streaks
of color -- that was all he saw. He had been caught in a vortex and was
being whirled on with a velocity of advance and gyration that made him
giddy and sick. In few moments he was flung upon the gravel at the foot
of the left bank of the stream -- the southern bank -- and behind a projecting
point which concealed him from his enemies. The sudden arrest of his motion,
the abrasion of one of his hands on the gravel, restored him, and he wept
with delight. He dug his fingers into the sand, threw it over himself in
handfuls and audibly blessed it. It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds;
he could think of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees
upon the bank were giant garden plants; he noted a definite order in their
arrangement, inhaled the fragrance of their blooms. A strange roseate light
shone through the spaces among their trunks and the wind made in their
branches the music of AEolian harps. He had not wish to perfect his escape
-- he was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken.
A whiz and a rattle of grapeshot
among the branches high above his head roused him from his dream. The baffled
cannoneer had fired him a random farewell. He sprang to his feet, rushed
up the sloping bank, and plunged into the forest.
All that day he traveled, laying
his course by the rounding sun. The forest seemed interminable; nowhere
did he discover a break in it, not even a woodman's road. He had not known
that he lived in so wild a region. There was something uncanny in the revelation.
By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore,
famished. The thought of his wife and children urged him on. At last he
found a road which led him in what he knew to be the right direction. It
was as wide and straight as a city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No
fields bordered it, no dwelling anywhere. Not so much as the barking of
a dog suggested human habitation. The black bodies of the trees formed
a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point, like
a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked up through
this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars looking unfamiliar and
grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some
order which had a secret and malign significance. The wood on either side
was full of singular noises, among which -- once, twice, and again -- he
distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue.
His neck was in pain and lifting
his hand to it found it horribly swollen. He knew that it had a circle
of black where the rope had bruised it. His eyes felt congested; he could
no longer close them. His tongue was swollen with thirst; he relieved its
fever by thrusting it forward from between his teeth into the cold air.
How softly the turf had carpeted the untraveled avenue -- he could no longer
feel the roadway beneath his feet!
Doubtless, despite his suffering,
he had fallen asleep while walking, for now he sees another scene -- perhaps
he has merely recovered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own
home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning
sunshine. He must have traveled the entire night. As he pushes open the
gate and passes up the wide white walk, he sees a flutter of female garments;
his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda
to meet him. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile
of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful
she is! He springs forwards with extended arms. As he is about to clasp
her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white
light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon -- then
all is darkness and silence!
Peyton Fahrquhar was dead; his body,
with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers
of the Owl Creek bridge.
The End
