The stories of Bogey Beast
A guy stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the quick water twenty feet underneath. The man's hands had been behind his back, the wrists certain with a twine. A rope intently encircled his neck. It become connected to a stout move-wood above his head and the slack fell to the extent of his knees. Some free boards laid upon the sleepers supporting the metals of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners-- non-public squaddies of the Federal military, directed by way of a sergeant who in civil lifestyles might also were a deputy sheriff. At a brief eliminate upon the equal transient platform became an officer inside the uniform of his rank, armed. He become a captain. A sentinel at every end of the bridge stood along with his rifle inside the position referred to as "assist," that is to say, vertical in the front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight throughout the chest--a proper and unnatural function, imposing an erect carriage of the frame. It did now not appear to be the obligation of those two guys to recognize what become happening on the middle 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 right away right into a woodland for 100 yards, then, curving, become lost to view. Doubtless there was an outpost farther alongside. The other bank of the movement turned into open ground--a mild acclivity topped with a stockade of vertical tree trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure via which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the bridge. Midway of the slope between the bridge and fort have been the spectators--a single organisation of infantry in line, at "parade rest," the butts of the rifles at the floor, the barrels inclining barely backward against the right shoulder, the palms crossed upon the stock. A lieutenant stood on the proper of the road, the point of his sword upon the floor, his left hand resting upon his proper. Excepting the institution of four on the center of the bridge, not a man moved. The agency confronted the bridge, staring stonily, immobile. The sentinels, dealing with the banks of the move, might have been statues to beautify the bridge. The captain stood with folded palms, silent, watching the paintings 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 means of the ones most acquainted with him. In the code of navy etiquette silence and fixity are varieties of deference.
The man who turned into engaged in being hanged changed into reputedly approximately thirty-five years of age. He was a civilian, if one may judge from his habit, which turned into that of a planter. His functions had been appropriate--a instantly nostril, company mouth, large forehead, from which his long, darkish hair turned into combed instantly returned, falling behind his ears to the collar of his well-fitting frock coat. He wore a mustache and pointed beard, however no whiskers; his eyes have been massive and dark gray, and had a kindly expression which one might infrequently have predicted in one whose neck changed into in the hemp. Evidently this turned into no vulgar murderer. The liberal army code makes provision for hanging many varieties of men and women, and gentlemen are not excluded.
The preparations being whole, the two non-public soldiers stepped aside and every drew away the plank upon which he were standing. The sergeant turned to the captain, saluted and placed himself at once behind that officer, who in flip moved aside one tempo. These actions left the condemned guy and the sergeant standing on the two ends of the same plank, which spanned three of the move-ties of the bridge. The cease upon which the civilian stood almost, but now not pretty, reached a fourth. This plank were held in region by means of the burden of the captain; it was now held by using that of the sergeant. At a signal from the former the latter could step apart, the plank would tilt and the condemned man pass down between ties. The arrangement commended itself to his judgment as simple and effective. His face had no longer been covered nor his eyes bandaged. He seemed a moment at his "unsteadfast footing," then permit his gaze wander to the swirling water of the movement racing madly underneath his feet. A piece of dancing driftwood caught his interest and his eyes accompanied it down the modern. How slowly it regarded to move, What a gradual flow!
He closed his eyes with the intention to restore his ultimate thoughts upon his spouse and kids. The water, touched to gold by way of the early sun, the brooding mists beneath the banks at some distance down the move, the castle, the soldiers, the piece of go with the flow--all had distracted him. And now he have become aware of a brand new disturbance. Striking thru the concept of his dear ones was a valid which he may want to neither forget about nor understand, a sharp, wonderful, metal percussion just like the stroke of a blacksmith's hammer upon the anvil; it had the identical ringing great. He questioned what it became, and whether or not immeasurably distant or close to by using--it seemed both. Its recurrence changed into regular, however as gradual because the tolling of a dying knell. He awaited each stroke with impatience and--he knew no longer why--apprehension. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer, the delays have become maddening. With their more infrequency the sounds multiplied in energy and sharpness. They harm his ear like the thrust of a knife; he feared he might shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch.
He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water underneath him. "If I could loose my arms," he concept, "I might throw off the noose and spring into the move. By diving I ought to keep away from the bullets and, swimming vigorously, reach the bank, take to the woods and get away home. My domestic, thank God, is as but out of doors their lines; my spouse and children are nonetheless beyond the invader's farthest strengthen."
As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, have been flashed into the doomed guy's mind in place of advanced from it the captain nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside.
