The Parenticide Club | Page 7

point of his arc. In consequence he went flying round and round in a
horizontal circle whose radius was about equal to half the length of the
rope, which I forgot to say was nearly twenty feet long. His shrieks,
crescendo in approach and diminuendo in recession, made the rapidity
of his revolution more obvious to the ear than to the eye. He had
evidently not yet been struck in a vital spot. His posture in the sack and
the distance from the ground at which he hung compelled the ram to
operate upon his lower extremities and the end of his back. Like a plant
that has struck its root into some poisonous mineral, my poor uncle was
dying slowly upward.
"After delivering its second blow the ram had not again retired. The
fever of battle burned hot in its heart; its brain was intoxicated with the
wine of strife. Like a pugilist who in his rage forgets his skill and fights
ineffectively at half-arm's length, the angry beast endeavored to reach
its fleeting foe by awkward vertical leaps as he passed overhead,
sometimes, indeed, succeeding in striking him feebly, but more
frequently overthrown by its own misguided eagerness. But as the
impetus was exhausted and the man's circles narrowed in scope and
diminished in speed, bringing him nearer to the ground, these tactics
produced better results, eliciting a superior quality of screams, which I
greatly enjoyed.
"Suddenly, as if the bugles had sung truce, the ram suspended
hostilities and walked away, thoughtfully wrinkling and smoothing its
great aquiline nose, and occasionally cropping a bunch of grass and

slowly munching it. It seemed to have tired of war's alarms and
resolved to beat the sword into a plowshare and cultivate the arts of
peace. Steadily it held its course away from the field of fame until it
had gained a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile. There it stopped and
stood with its rear to the foe, chewing its cud and apparently half asleep.
I observed, however, an occasional slight turn of its head, as if its
apathy were more affected than real.
"Meantime Uncle William's shrieks had abated with his motion, and
nothing was heard from him but long, low moans, and at long intervals
my name, uttered in pleading tones exceedingly grateful to my ear.
Evidently the man had not the faintest notion of what was being done
to him, and was inexpressibly terrified. When Death comes cloaked in
mystery he is terrible indeed. Little by little my uncle's oscillations
diminished, and finally he hung motionless. I went to him and was
about to give him the coup de grace, when I heard and felt a succession
of smart shocks which shook the ground like a series of light
earthquakes, and turning in the direction of the ram, saw a long cloud
of dust approaching me with inconceivable rapidity and alarming effect!
At a distance of some thirty yards away it stopped short, and from the
near end of it rose into the air what I at first thought a great white bird.
Its ascent was so smooth and easy and regular that I could not realize
its extraordinary celerity, and was lost in admiration of its grace. To
this day the impression remains that it was a slow, deliberate movement,
the ram--for it was that animal--being upborne by some power other
than its own impetus, and supported through the successive stages of its
flight with infinite tenderness and care. My eyes followed its progress
through the air with unspeakable pleasure, all the greater by contrast
with my former terror of its approach by land. Onward and upward the
noble animal sailed, its head bent down almost between its knees, its
fore-feet thrown back, its hinder legs trailing to rear like the legs of a
soaring heron.
"At a height of forty or fifty feet, as fond recollection presents it to
view, it attained its zenith and appeared to remain an instant stationary;
then, tilting suddenly forward without altering the relative position of
its parts, it shot downward on a steeper and steeper course with
augmenting velocity, passed immediately above me with a noise like
the rush of a cannon shot and struck my poor uncle almost squarely on

the top of the head! So frightful was the impact that not only the man's
neck was broken, but the rope too; and the body of the deceased, forced
against the earth, was crushed to pulp beneath the awful front of that
meteoric sheep! The concussion stopped all the clocks between Lone
Hand and Dutch Dan's, and Professor Davidson, a distinguished
authority in matters seismic, who happened to be in the vicinity,
promptly explained that the vibrations were from north to southwest.
"Altogether, I cannot help thinking that