Speaker 1: 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 rope. A rope closely and jurgled his neck. It
was attached to a stout cross temper above his head,
and the slight fell to the level of his knees.
Some loose boards laid upon the sleepers, supporting the metals
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
share 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. 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 acclivity topped with a stock aid of vertical
tree trunks, loop holed for rifles with a single embrasure
through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon. Commanding
the bridge midway of the slope between bridge and the
fort were the spectators, A single company of infantry in
line at parade, rest the buds of the rivals on
the ground, the barrels inclining slightly backward against the right shoulder,
the hands crossed upon the stock. A lieutenant stood in
the right of the lane, 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 statutes 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, or 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 habboit, which
is that of a planter. His features were good, a
straight nose, firm mouth, broad forehead from which his long
dark hair was calmed, straight back, falling behind his ears
to the collar of his well fitting frock coat. He
wore a mustache and appointed 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. The Liberal Military Code makes
provision for hanging many kinds of persons, and gentlemen were
not excluded. The preparations being completed, 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 moved himself immediately behind that officer, who in
turned moved apart one's space. These movements left the condemned
man and the sergeant standing on the two ends of
the same plank, which spanned three of the crossed eyes
of the bridge. The end upon which the civilian stood
almost but not quite reached to 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 farmer, the latter would step aside,
the plank would tilt, and the condemned man go down
between the two ties. The arrangement commended itself to his
judgment as simple and effective. His face had not been covered,
nor his eyes bandage. He looked a moment at his
unsteadfast footing, then let his gaze wander to the swirling
waters of the stream racing madly beneath his feet. A
piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention, and his eyes
followed it down the stream. 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 midst upon the back 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
sharp sound which he could neither I nor understand, A
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 nearby,
it seemed both. Its occurrence 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
interval of silence who progressively longer The delays became maddening.
With their greatest infrequency, the sounds increased in strength and sharpness.
They hurt his ears like the thrust of a knife.
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,
reached the bank. Take to the woods and get away. Home.
My home, thank God, is as yet outside their lives.
My wife and little ones are still beyond the invader's
father's advance. As these thoughts, which have hereto be set
down in words, were flashed into the dune'sman's brain rather
than evolved from it, the captain nodded to the sergeant,
and the sergeant stepped aside. Peyton Farquhar was a well
tonew planter of an old and highly respected Alabama family.
Being a slave owner, and like the other slave owners,
a politician, it was naturally an original secessionist and artly
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 Gallot army that had fought
the disastrous campaign's 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, an 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
Farkhar 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. Missus Farquhar was only too happy to serve
him with her own white ends. 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 railroad, said the man, and are getting ready for
another advance. They have reached the ale 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 drains will be summarily hanged. I saw the order.
How far is it to the al Creek bridge, Farkhar asked,
Or 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 in
this end of the bridge. Suppose a man, a civilian,
and a student of hanging should elude the picket post
and perhaps get the better of the sentinel, said Farquhar, smiling.
What would 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 drying, 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. As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downwards
through the bridge, he lost some consciousness, and was as
one already dead from this date. 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 agony 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 curiosity. 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, unencompassed in a luminous cloud from
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
fightful 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 strigulation. The noose about
his neck was already suffocating him, and kept the water
from his lungs. To dive. 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 distance, how inaccessible. He
was still singing, 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 appraised him that
he was trying to free his hands. He gave the
struggle his attention, as an idler might observe the feet
of a juggler without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort,
what magnificent, what superhuman strength? Ah, that was a fine endeavor. Bravo.
The card 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 pulsed upon the noose at his neck.
They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, his
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 news had been
succeeded by the direst 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 wretched 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 expended convulsively and with
a supreme and crowning agony. His lungs engulfed a great
dropped 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 ever 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. Saw the
very insectives 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 danked above the eddies of the stream, the beating
of the dragonfly wings, the strokes of the water spider's
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 his body parting the water.
He had come to the surface, facing down on the stream.
In a moment, the visible whorls seemed to wheel slowly
round himself the pivotal point, and he saw the bridge,
the fort, the two soldiers upon the bridge, the captain,
the sergeant, the two privates, his executioners. They were in
silhouette against the blue sky. They shouted and gestillated, pointing
at him. The captain has 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, splattering 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 eye, and remembered
having read that gray eyes were keenest and that all
famous marksmen had them. Nevertheless, this one had missed a
countless swirl, had called Farquhar and turned him half around.
He was again looking into the forest on the bank
opposite the fort. The sound of a clear, high voice
in a monotonous sing song 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 ear. 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 piteously, with what
an even calm intonation, presaging and enforcing tranquility in the men,
With what accurately measured intervals fell those cruel words Attention company, soldiers,
Arms ready, aim fire. Farquard dived, dived as deeply as
he could. The water roared in his ears like the
voice of niagra. 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, and fell away,
continuing their descent. One lodge between his collar and his 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 furthered 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 threw rust 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
Martinette's era a second time. It is as easy to
dodge a folly 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
which seemed to travel back through the air to the fort,
and died in an explosion which stirred the very river
to his steps. A rising sheet of water curved over him,
fell down upon him, blinded him, and strangled him. The
cannon had taken a 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 around 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. It had been
caught in aforetex and was being whirled on with a
velocity of advance and gyration that made him giddy and sick.
In a few moments, he was flung upon the gravel
at the foot of the left bank of the stream,
the southern bag and behind the projecting points, 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 banks were giant garden plants. He
noted a definite order in their arrangement, inhaled the fragrance
of their blooms. A strange rosette light shone through the
branches among their trunks, and the wind made in their
branches the music of harps. He had no wish to
perfect his escape, was content to remain in that enchanting
spot until we taken. A whist and a rattle of
grape shot among the branches high above his head roused
him from the stream. 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 woodsman 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,
and famished. Thought of his wife and children urged him on.
At last he found a road which led him to
what he knew to be the right direction, and was
as wide and straight as the city street. Yet it
seemed untraveled. No fields boarded 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 woods, 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
again he distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue. His
neck was in pain, and lifting his hand to it,
he found it horribly swollen. He knew that it had
a circle of black where the rope had bruised it.
Eli's eyes felt congested, could no longer close them. His
tongue was swollen with thirst. He relieved his 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
by his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking. For
now he sees another scene, Perhaps he had merely recovered
from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his
own home. All is as he left it, 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 inefftable joy an attitude of matchless grace and dignity,
and how beautiful she is. He springs forward with extended arms.
As he is about to clasp her, he feels a
stunning blow upon the back of his neck. A blinding
white light glazes all about him, with a sound like
the shock of a cannon. The gnaws darkness and silence.
Peyton Farquhar was dead, his body with a broken neck,
swung gently from side to side beneath the tempers of
the Isle Creek Bridge. End of story.