The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce | Page 5

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 mustache 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 judgment 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 a 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 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
thrust 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 Farquhar 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 the gallant army that 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 war time. Meanwhile he did what
he could. No service was too humble for him to perform in aid of the
South,