The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce | Page 3

to the significance
of the situation, Druse now brought the butt of his rifle against his
cheek by cautiously pushing the barrel forward through the bushes,
cocked the piece, and glancing through the sights covered a vital spot
of the horseman's breast. A touch upon the trigger and all would have
been well with Carter Druse. At that instant the horseman turned his
head and looked in the direction of his concealed foeman--seemed to
look into his very face, into his eyes, into his brave, compassionate
heart.
Is it then so terrible to kill an enemy in war--an enemy who has
surprised a secret vital to the safety of one's self and comrades--an
enemy more formidable for his knowledge than all his army for its

numbers? Carter Druse grew pale; he shook in every limb, turned faint,
and saw the statuesque group before him as black figures, rising, falling,
moving unsteadily in arcs of circles in a fiery sky. His hand fell away
from his weapon, his head slowly dropped until his face rested on the
leaves in which he lay. This courageous gentleman and hardy soldier
was near swooning from intensity of emotion.
It was not for long; in another moment his face was raised from earth,
his hands resumed their places on the rifle, his forefinger sought the
trigger; mind, heart, and eyes were clear, conscience and reason sound.
He could not hope to capture that enemy; to alarm him would but send
him dashing to his camp with his fatal news. The duty of the soldier
was plain: the man must be shot dead from ambush--without warning,
without a moment's spiritual preparation, with never so much as an
unspoken prayer, he must be sent to his account. But no--there is a
hope; he may have discovered nothing--perhaps he is but admiring the
sublimity of the landscape. If permitted, he may turn and ride carelessly
away in the direction whence he came. Surely it will be possible to
judge at the instant of his withdrawing whether he knows. It may well
be that his fixity of attention--Druse turned his head and looked
through the deeps of air downward, as from the surface to the bottom of
a translucent sea. He saw creeping across the green meadow a sinuous
line of figures of men and horses--some foolish commander was
permitting the soldiers of his escort to water their beasts in the open, in
plain view from a dozen summits!
Druse withdrew his eyes from the valley and fixed them again upon the
group of man and horse in the sky, and again it was through the sights
of his rifle. But this time his aim was at the horse. In his memory, as if
they were a divine mandate, rang the words of his father at their parting:
"Whatever may occur, do what you conceive to be your duty." He was
calm now. His teeth were firmly but not rigidly closed; his nerves were
as tranquil as a sleeping babe's--not a tremor affected any muscle of his
body; his breathing, until suspended in the act of taking aim, was
regular and slow. Duty had conquered; the spirit had said to the body:
"Peace, be still." He fired.
III
An officer of the Federal force, who in a spirit of adventure or in quest
of knowledge had left the hidden bivouac in the valley, and with

aimless feet had made his way to the lower edge of a small open space
near the foot of the cliff, was considering what he had to gain by
pushing his exploration further. At a distance of a quarter-mile before
him, but apparently at a stone's throw, rose from its fringe of pines the
gigantic face of rock, towering to so great a height above him that it
made him giddy to look up to where its edge cut a sharp, rugged line
against the sky. It presented a clean, vertical profile against a
background of blue sky to a point half the way down, and of distant
hills, hardly less blue, thence to the tops of the trees at its base. Lifting
his eyes to the dizzy altitude of its summit the officer saw an
astonishing sight--a man on horseback riding down into the valley
through the air!
Straight upright sat the rider, in military fashion, with a firm seat in the
saddle, a strong clutch upon the rein to hold his charger from too
impetuous a plunge. From his bare head his long hair streamed upward,
waving like a plume. His hands were concealed in the cloud of the
horse's lifted mane. The animal's body was as level as if every
hoof-stroke encountered the resistant earth. Its motions were those of a
wild gallop, but even as the officer looked they ceased, with all