The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce | Page 6

no adventure too 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 Farquhar 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. Farquhar 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?" Farquhar asked.
"About thirty miles."
"Is there no force on this side 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 Farquhar,
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 tow."
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 Farquhar 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 fibre
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 fulness--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 plash; 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