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 fell 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 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 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 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 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
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
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 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 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
Farquhar 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!"
Farquhar 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 Farquhar was dead; his
body, with a broken neck, swung
gently from side to side beneath
the timbers of the Owl Creek
bridge.