© i Ser sai it vedetate $5 see ee r2 ipe ey fT i ue ¥ orerare? Set bien ates ise ee! oakeort ei subHeuor % Hefei shies erga ven ny oh Ne Papi pel University of Virginia Library PS1097 .149 1927 ALD In the midst of life; tales of VM MUNN | Leve 75GEERT ETT rereseen 3 ‘4 ee isMT nen = (nui areas fenanranoin Vj Wi YI ts | 7 LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA IN MEMORY OF JAMES MATTHEW BOWCOCK Ui Bit ( Wi HAMM [ y } WiiWii) p PPT aT Yossi LANE PITAL BACILLI ALLLDLte}TY Hook? MO DE RN LIB Rea he GE T HE WOR DL D2S BLES Te B OgOyess IN THE MIDST OF EGEE The pu ilishers will be pleased to send, upon request, an illustrated folder setting forth the purpose and scope of TILE MODERN LIBRARY, and listing each volume in tle series. Every reader of books wil find titles he has been looking for, handsomely printed, in unabridged ’ rae . Se euiftions, an l at an Unusuatt) low price.IN THE MIDST OF LIFE Tales of Soldiers and Civilians BY AMBROSE BIERCE Introduction by GEORGE STERLING —_—<——Ses THE MODERN LIBRARY 3 NEW YORK — /COPYRIGHT 1909, BY A. AND C. BONI, INC. 1927, BY THE MODERN LIBRARY, INC. (OPYRIGHT, G .: 3 a: ols : ag \\i \ ) hi andom House IS THE PUBLISHER OF Seen oOo DE RUN 2 B ReA he BENNETT A. CERF: DONALD S. KLOPFER~: ROBERT KE. HAAS Manufactured in the United States of America rt > , . > . Printed by Parkway Printing Company Bound by H. WolffPREFACE TO THE FIRS EDUION DENIED existence by the chief publishing houses of the country, this book owes itself to) Vir, By 1 Ge ofecles menchantaon tats city. In attesting Mr. Steeie’s faith in his judgment and his friend, it will serve its au- thor’s main and best ambition. AS Bs SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 4, 1891.CONTENTS SOLDIERS A HorsEMAN IN THE Sky «AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE SCRIGCKAMAUGA’ © OS eg ee =—ACISON OF THE GODS! .. = < - ONE OF THE MISSING. ~~. ~~ 2 KSITEED AT KRESAGA «. . 4. Tue Arrair at Coutter’s NotcH” Tue Cour ve GrAce PARKER ADDERSON, PHILOSOPHER An AFFAIR OF OUTPOSTS THe Story oF A CONSCIENCE .. @NE KIND’ :oF QOFFIGER: 395. 2°; ONE OFFICER, ONE MAN Rye ec GEORGE GEHURSTON <4 25 -. THe Mocxinc-BrD’. ... CIVILIANS THe Man Out oF THE NOSE AN ADVENTURE AT BROWNVILLE Tue Famous GILSoN BEQUEST . . 146 165 178 197 2009 218 233 266,Tue APPLICANT iets. A WatTCHER BY THE DEAD Tue MAN AND THE SNAKE A Hoty TERROR , Tue SUITABLE SURROUNDING THe BoarpED WINDOW A Lapy FroM Rep HorseE THe Eyes or THE PANTHER ra] > PAGEINTRODUCTION I REGRET that I may not use the forbidden metaphor, ‘‘a star rising in the West.” None other would so well express the gathering light and slow inevitability of ascension of Ambrose Bierce’s fame. The Wise Men of the East first saw it as a feeble spark, scarcely to be detected through the haze and murk of the western horizon. “A little,” they might have said, “‘and it will have set.” But a little, and it had crept a degree farther up the lit- erary heavens, and was finally visible even from Europe. It had a strange quality, that star, a “cold inclemency of light” such as we find in Vega on a clear midnight of spring, an austerity in its blue crystal, the bleak brilliance that lances from the larger diamonds. There was a ray that touched man only in his hour of pain, of terror, of death—a ray that revealed what we hesitate to behold and which leaves the weaker beholders ungrateful for the vision ac- corded. The clairvoyance of the Greek drama- 1ll INTRODUCTION tist was here, revealing man as an august ye. helpless figure in the clutch of the main tide of destiny. These tales were not cheerful ones: rather they held the reader as the ser- pent’s eyes are fabled to fascinate the bird. Here was no comfort, no flattering exposition of man’s vaunted triumph over his fates. He sat among Shadows, some of them akin to the shadows in his own soul. ‘There was no care for him in the universe, no justice as he dreamed justice should be rendered to his race. But while he indignantly rejected the testi- mony, he could not forget it, nor put the wit- ness from his mind. He began to ask: “Who is Ambrose Bierce?” And the fame of “the Shadow-Maker” began at the inevitable question. More than one biography of Bierce is con- templated. Till one appear, the best account of his life may be found in Bertha Clark Pope’s preface to his “Letters,” published by the Book Club of California in 1922. In that volume is also contained a brief memoir by myself, and other such reminiscences may be found in my article in the October, 1925, number of the American Mercury. -A sum- mary of the records would relate that Am-INTRODUCTION ill brose Gwinett Bierce was born in Meiggs County, Ohio, on June 24, 1842, was given such education as the country school of that day afforded (he was an inveterate reader as a boy), and volunteered as a private at the outbreak of the Civil War, in 1861. He served for the entire duration of the strife, and dur- ing its latter years was an officer on the staff of General Hazen. He twice rescued wounded companions, at grave risk, and was himself twice wounded, once in the heel, and once, far more severely, in the head, this casualty during the battle of Kenesaw Mountain. The wart ended, he was brevetted Major for distinguished services, by especial act of Con- gress. He then joined his elder brother, Al- bert, in San Francisco, and took a position in the United States Mint there. But our Lady of the Inkwell was soon to call him, and not long afterwards he gave up that occupa- tion for creative work, holding editorial posi- tions consecutively on several San Francisco weeklies, the News Letter, the Argonaut and The Wasp. In 1872, however, he went to London, where for four years he was on the staff of Fun, and an intimate friend of George Augustus SalaIV INTRODUCTION and the younger Tom Hood. It was during this period that he published those three little volumes, now rare, called “The Fiend’s De- light,” “Nuggets and Dust,” and “Cobwebs from an Empty Skull.” They were original in their often ghastly humor, but, though Gladstone himself had a good word for them, remain almost unknown, nor would Bierce himself acknowledge his authorship to the extent of autographing copies. He returned to San Francisco in 1876, and lived in that city and such small towns as Auburn, Angwin and Wright for the next twenty-one years, his only absence from Cali- fornia being a brief period of employment as general manager of a mining company near Deadwood, Dakota. He was at first editor of The Wasp, whose caustic qualities lost noth- ing for his connection with that weekly. From this position he was allured by William Ran- dolph Hearst, who had just begun the career that was to prove so ominously successful, and till the final years of his life was to conduct a department on the editorial page of Hearst's Sunday Examiner and, after his removal to Washington, D. C., on the New York Amer-INTRODUCTION Vv ican and finally in the pages of the Cosmo pol- ttan Magazine. By far the greater part of this work was polemical in its nature. Journalism in the West had not yet become entirely tame, had not yet resorted to the amenities and timidities of the more cultured regions of the planet. Bierce’s pen was dipped in wormwood and acid, and he being, as H. L. Mencken has justly asserted, then and to this day the keen- est wit of America, his assaults were more dreaded than the bowie knife and revolver, since relegated to the eastern centers of civili- zation. He spared no one whom he thought deserving of his castigations. From million- aire to labor-leader, all were to know the “strength and terror’ of his verbal onsets. Nor did he take refuge in words only: to my own knowledge he always carried, at least when in California, a large revolver, and was quite ready “to go farther into the matter’ with such as cared to meet him on that plane! I have no memory that he was ever so chal- lenged, though he once broke a cane over the head of a friend who had become a friend no longer. It was during these twenty-one years in Cal-vi INTRODUCTION ifornia, spent mostly in the country hamlets and towns that I have mentioned, that Bierce wrote practically all the work on which his fame is to rest. After his hegira to Wash- ington, in 1896, his literary toils were per- ceptibly lighter, his satiric verse milder and his short-stories (though he did not believe this) much less fascinating. But his work had been done, and further efforts were to awaken but echoes in the dim caverns of the ghostly domains where he had wandered so far. Some of his contributions to the American never found publication, and are lost to this day. The short-stories that appeared in the Cosmo- politan seem alone of any especial value. Bierce, himself, thought that he would be remembered, if at all, as a satirist. In these days of universal tolerance and courtesy, the breed is almost extinct, but had he lived in the time of Pope he would have made that writer’s work seem, by comparison, mild stuff indeed. There is little invective so terrible as that poured forth by him on California’s fools and rascals—instances, in most cases, of breaking the butterfly on the wheel. But no English satirist has equaled the blistering in- tensity of wit that ran so easily from his pen.INTRODUCTION vil Bierce had married, early in his western ca- reer, the beautiful Molly Day. The couple took separate ways after the birth of two sons and a daughter, nor were they ever to meet again. Day Bierce, the brighter of the boys, was murdered in northern California, as the result of a love affair. Leigh, the younger, died when an assistant editor of a newspaper in New York City. Helen, the daughter, lives with her husband, Francis Isgrigg, Esq., in Los Angeles. As for Bierce himself, he en- tered Mexico, in November, 1913, and was for a while on the staff of the insurgent Villa, but by January all letters from him ceased, and though, at the close of the war, diligent inquiry was made for him by both our State and War Departments, no trace of his actions nor fate was forthcoming until five years had passed. It was then that an account of his death appeared, written by George F. Weeks, a cor- respondent in the field during the revolution- ary period. It relates Mr. Weeks’ friendship with Dr. Edmund Melero, a young man of Durango, who said that he was “the best of friends” with Bierce while the two were still connected with Villa’s forces. He readilyvill INTRODUCTION identified Bierce’s photograph, and promised to make inquiry as to his fate. That promise was fulfilled when, a few months later, he came to Mr. Weeks’ office, in Mexico City, and related his meeting with a friend who had been a sergeant in General Tomas Urbina’s forces under Villa. ‘This man recognized Bierce in memory, from Don Urbina’s description, and indeed Bierce was an unforgetable personality, what with his six feet of height, his ruddy face, snow-white hair and mustache, and piercing blue eyes. Bierce, said the sergeant, had been shot by command of Urbina. According to the circumstances alleged, Bierce must have deserted Villa’s army and joined that of the Constitutionalists, for the man’s story went that Urbina, during a forced march, captured near the village of Icamole a pack-train of ammunition, all its guards es- caping with the exception of a Mexican and an America. Brought before Urbina, they were questioned, but the American merely shook his head in reply, when interrogated. As none of Urbina’s men could speak English, communication was impossible, and Urbina, being in extreme haste, promptly ordered bothINTRODUCTION 1X men to be shot. “The order was executed at once, and both bodies buried in the same shal- low grave. So, to quote Mr. Weeks: “This was undoubtedly the fate of Ambrose Bierce —exactly the fate he had expressed a desire to meet.’”’ And as this is the only account of the affair that diligent search has revealed, it may safely be taken as an accurate statement of the end of the author. Melero afterward brought his sergeant friend to see me, and he repeated his story as already given, also iden- tifying a photograph which was shown him as that of the American whom he saw so sum- marily executed. Urbina fell out with Villa not long after this execution, and was himself killed by “Butcher” Fierro, the more or less private executioner for Villa. Now appears, in a late issue of one of our quarterlies, a more circumstantial account of Bierce’s end, in an article by one Adolph Danziger (‘‘Adolphe de Castro”). Danziger flatly states that Bierce, after Villa’s capture of Chihuahua and the inaction following, pro- posed to a peon acquaintance that they desert to the Carranza side. Villa, somehow hear- ing of this, obtained by torture a confession from the peon, and ordered him, sardonically,x INTRODUCTION to lead Bierce to the Carranzista forces. This attempted, they were shot down by night, be- fore they had gone more than a quarter of a mile, by a squad of soldiers, and their bodies left to the dogs and vultures. Danziger goes on to relate that, ten years afterward, he obtained an interview with Villa, who scowled at the mention of Bierce, but who would go no further than to state that he had turned traitor and hence had been “driven away.” So the reader may take his choice between the two versions of the tragedy. Among those who knew Bierce, the Danziger account is laid open to grave doubts by his deliberate mendacity in asserting that Bierce once worked for M. H. de Young, and had also endeav- ored to find a position with the Southern Pa- cific Railway, both acts for which he would cheerfully have suffered crucifixion rather than commit. Danziger was the person over whose head Bierce broke his cane to frag- ments, as hereinbefore stated, and his article, patently malicious, bears more than the above evidence of being a postponed revenge. One is left to wonder that he did not repair to Chihuahua and feast on the bones of Bierce.INTRODUCTION x] I have gone to this length in writing of Bierce’s possible fate, because its mystery has become one of profound interest to all readers of his work. It is significant that Bierce (if it was indeed he) refused to reply to Urbina. And yet Bierce had at least a slight acquaint- ance with the Spanish tongue. Again pro- vided that it was he, the refusal is entirely in line with his evident wish to be slain in war. For he had definitely indicated that he was entering Mexico with that hope. “I am so old,” he wrote (he was but seventy-one, with the vitality of a lion), “that I’m ashamed to be alive.” And again: “To be a Gringo in Mexico—that is indeed euthanasia!’ Icamole or Chihuahua—the Peace was the same. I have said that Bierce’s first appearance between book covers was with the publication in London of three small volumes whose pa- ternity he was slow to acknowledge and whose literary worth he was wont to disavow. His next book was not to appear until 1891, with the publication, under the unimaginative title of “Tales of Soldiers and Civilians,” of the stories in this volume. It failed, what with obtuse critics and the benighted public, to cre- ate the sensation that he expected. One pur-x INTRODUCTION blind creature, reviewing the book in the New York Sun, went even so far as to suggest that it was written to scare children and timid old Jadies—that, of these tremendous and impec- cable tales! Bierce replied that the stories were published because he thought them good and true art, which is a modest estimate. “The Monk and the Hangman’s Daughter,” Bierce’s only romance, written at the sugges- tion of Dr. Danziger, the plot being the cre- ation of Professor Richard Voss, appeared the next year, and was followed by his first book of satiric verse, entitled “Black Beetles in Amber.” No further stories appeared, for all his prolific pen, for the following twenty years; but in 1898, G. P. Putnam’s Sons re- published “Tales of Soldiers and Civilians” under the present title. In 1899, appeared “Fantastic Fables”; in 1903, the second vol- ume of satiric verse, “Shapes of Clay’’; in 1906, “The Cynic’s Word Book,” a collection of epigrams, diabolically astute, for which he had hoped to be permitted the title, “The Devil’s Dictionary’; in 1909, “Write It Right,” a blacklist of literary faults, and “The Shadow on the Dial,” a collection of essays recording some of his dislikes, and finally,INTRODUCTION xl during the years from 1909 to 1912, “The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce.” With the publication in these last volumes of such of his work as he felt best fitted to represent him in the annals of literature, Bierce laid by his pen. In the dust-thatched numbers of the weeklies, including the Sun- day Examiner, to which he contributed his thousands of columns, lie, however, almost in- exhaustible treasures of wit and wisdom, which, with the continuous growth of his fame and interest in his vivid personality, are sure to be brought back to the light of future years. A laborious task, indeed, and one whose out- come yet awaits a discerning public of num- bers sufficient to make publication profitable. And yet the thing will be accomplished, some day, and the time to come will marvel at the mind that found so chary a welcome during its own existence. It is hardly to be wondered at. Bierce, the first of the “columnists,” never troubled to conceal his justifiable contempt for humanity at its present stage of development, a con- tempt truly Caligulan in its scope and inten- sity. Man leaped naked under that furious scourging, for Bierce was a “perfectionist.” aXIV INTRODUCTION quality that in his case led to an intolerance involving merciless cruelty. He demanded in all others, men or women, the same ethical virtues that he found essential to his own man- ner of life and mentation, and to deviate from his point of view, indeed, to disagree with him even in slight particulars, was the unpar- donable sin. One was to have none other god beside him, and though he might, at the time, evince no anger at any /ése majesté, the of- fense was nevertheless recorded in his unerr- ing memory, to be used as a weapon of wrath when the final break came, as come it did with practically all of his friends. His brother Albert attributed this failing to the wound in the head that Ambrose received in the Civil War, asserting that after that casualty his en- tire nature underwent a change of which a certain assumption of infallibility, combined with implacable severity, was the most discon- certing element. Be that as it may, his pes- simism was darker than even Swift’s, though, like his, of the same sophomoric quality that concerned itself with the immediate condition of the race, and was innocent of the far more terrible implications of infinity. But whatever his opinion of mankind, heINTRODUCTION XV left it richer by his tremendous short stories, the richest trophies he was to wrest from oblivion, and the most notable of which are between the covers of this volume. Their highest claim to distinction is, I think, their style, of a clarity and simplicity unequaled in Einglishletters, “ts as-crystal clear yet as disquieting, as the waters of a haunted well. His heroes, or rather victims, are lonely men, passing to unpredictable dooms, and hearing, from inaccessible crypts of space, the voices of unseen malevolencies. No easy optimism is here, but one is made aware of the possible horrors of life, like cobras hidden in heaped orchids. Dislike the stories one may; forget them one cannot. Perhaps the greatest “ter- ror tale” in our literature is Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.’ But close behind it, that granted, come a dozen of Bierce’s stories, prominent among them “The Death of Hal- pin Eraser’ “While in An Occurrence at Owl Bridge’’—Bierce was not fortunate in his choice of titles—we have one of the very great- est stories in the world’s literature. It is ab- surd to claim that he derived from Poe, and indeed he wrote his tales with the intention in mind to have them differ from them asXVi INTRODUCTION much as possible, so that we have in them a steely reserve that makes Poe’s, usually, seem almost boyish by comparison. Of course, the ‘terror tale” was neither Poe’s discovery nor sole property. It was Biterce’s fortune to make it less fantastic, yet no less remarkable. But his tales do not depend, for their strange and dreadful impact, on the cerements and putridities that make those of Poe indelible. Bierce’s tragedies are not of the tomb. The stories are, naturally, in the “old style,” the manner superseded not, as many imagine, D¥ nO, menny, but by, Kipling: As forthe former, read any of his tales but ‘“The Lost Leaf,” and you have read it forever: the plot once known, the flippant manner is negligible. While in the case of Bierce’s stories the re- verse is in evidence, and one finds, in proof of their supreme artistry, that they can be read over and over, with continually increas- ing pleasure, what with their perfection of style, a style at once inimitable and unfor- getable. GEORGE STERLING. San Francisco, October, 1926.SOLDIERSA HORSEMAN IN THE SKY I NE sunny afternoon in the autumn of the year 1861 a soldier lay in a clump of laurel by the side of a road in western Virginia. He lay at full length upon his stomach, his feet resting upon the toes, his head upon the left forearm. His extended right hand ioosely grasped his rifle. But for the somewhat methodical disposition of his limbs and a slight rhythmic movement of the cartridge-box at the back of his belt he might have been thought to be dead. He was asleep at his post of duty. But if detected he would be dead shortly afterward, death being the just and legal penalty of his crime. The clump of laurel in which the criminal lay was in the angle of a road which after ascending southward a steep acclivity to that point turned sharply to the west, running along the summit for perhaps one hundred yards. There it turned southward again and went zigzagging downward through the for- est. At the salient of that second angle was 416 IN THE MIDST OF LIFE large flat rock, jutting out northward, over- looking the deep valley from which the road ascended. The rock capped a high cliff; a stone dropped from its outer edge would have fallen sheer downward one thousand feet to the tops of the pines. The angle where the soldier lay was on another spur of the same cliff. Had he been awake he would have com- manded a view, not only of the short arm of the road and the jutting rock, but of the entire profile of the cliff below it. It might well have made him giddy to look. The country was wooded everywhere ex- cept at the bottom of the valley to the north- ward, where there was a small natural meadow, through which flowed a stream scarcely visible from the valley’s rim. This open ground looked hardly larger than an ordinary door-yard, but was really several acres in extent. Its green was more vivid than that of the inclosing forest. Away beyond it rose a line of giant cliffs similar to those upon which we are supposed to stand in our survey of the savage scene, and through which the road had somehow made its climb to the summit. ‘The configuration of the valley, in- deed, was such that from this point of observa- tion it seemed entirely shut in, and one couldIN THE MIDST OF LIFE My) but have wondered how the road which found a way out of it had found a way into it, and whence came and whither went the waters of the stream that parted the meadow more than a thousand feet below. No country is so wild and difficult but men will make it a theatre of war; concealed in the forest at the bottom of that military rat-trap, in which half a hundred men in possession of the exits might have starved an army to sub- mission, lay five regiments of Federal in- fantry. They had marched all the previous day and night and were resting. At nightfall they would take to the road again, climb to the place where their unfaithful sentinel now slept, and descending the other slope of the ridge fall upon a camp of the enemy at about midnight. Their hope was to surprise it, for the road led to the rear of it. In case of fail- ure, their position would be perilous in the extreme; and fail they surely would should accident or vigilance apprise the enemy of the movement. II The sleeping sentinel in the clump of laurel was a young Virginian named Carter Druse. He was ‘the son of wealthy parents, an only child, and had known such ease aad cultiva- ’18 IN THE MIDST OF LIFE tion and high living as wealth and taste were able to command in the mountain country of western Virginia. His home was but a few miles from where he now lay. One morning he had risen from the breakfast-table and said, quietly but gravely: “ Father, a Union regiment has arrived at Grafton. I am going to join it.” The father lifted his leonine head, looked at the son a moment in silence, and replied: “Well, go, sir, and whatever may occur do what you conceive to be your duty. Virginia, to which you are a traitor, must get on with- out you. Should we both live to the end of the war, we will speak further of the matter. Your mother, as the physician has informed you, is in a most critical condition; at the best she cannot be with us longer than a few weeks, but that time is precious. It would be better not to disturb her.” So Carter Druse, bowing reverently to his father, who returned the salute with a stately courtesy that masked a breaking heart, left the home of his childhood to go soldiering. By conscience and courage, by deeds of devotion and daring, he soon commended himself to his fellows and his officers; and it was to these qualities and to some knowledge of the coun-IN THE MIDST OF LIFE 19 try that he owed his selection for his present perilous duty at the extreme outpost. Never- theless, fatigue had been stronger than resolu- tion and he had fallen asleep. What good or bad angel came in a dream to rouse him from his state of crime, who shall say? Without a movement, without a sound, in the profound silence and the languor of the late afternoon, some invisible messenger of fate touched with unsealing finger the eyes of his consciousness —whispered into the ear of his spirit the mys- terious awakening word which no human lips ever have spoken, no human memory ever has recalled. He quietly raised his forehead from his arm and looked between the masking stems of the laurels, instinctively closing his right hand about the stock of his rifle. His first feeling was a keen artistic delight. On a colossal pedestal, the cliff—motionless at the extreme edge of the capping rock and sharply outlined against the sky,—was an equestrian statue of impressive dignity. The figure of the man sat the figure of the horse, straight and soldierly, but with the repose of a Grecian god carved in the marble which lim- its the suggestion of activity. The gray cos- tume harmonized with its aérial background: the metal of accoutrement and caparison wa:20 IN THE MIDST OF LIFE softened and subdued by the shadow; the animal’s skin had no points of high light. A carbine strikingly foreshortened lay across the pommel of the saddle, kept in place by the right hand grasping it at the “ grip”; the left hand, holding the bridle rein, was invisible. In silhouette against the sky the profile of the horse was cut with the sharpness of a cameo; it looked across the heights of air to the con- fronting cliffs beyond. The face of the rider, turned slightly away, showed only an outline of temple and beard; he was looking down- ward to the bottom of the valley. Magnified by its lift against the sky and by the soldier's testifying sense of the formidableness of a near enemy the group appeared of heroic, al- most colossal, size. For an instant Druse had a strange, half- defined feeling that he had slept to the end of the war and was looking upon a noble work of art reared upon that eminence to com- memorate the deeds of an heroic past of which he had been an inglorious part. The feeling was dispelled by a slight movement of the group: the horse, without moving its feet, had drawn its body slightly backward from the verge; the man remained immobile as be- fore. Broad awake and keenly alive to theIN THE MIDST OF LIFE 2 significance of the situation, Druse now brought the butt of his rifle against his cheek by cautiously pushing the barret forward through the bushes, cocked the piece, and glancing through the sights covered a vital spot of the horseman’s breast. A touch upon the trigger and all would have been well with Carter Druse. At that instant the horseman turned his head and looked in the direction of his concealed foeman—seemed to look into his very face, into his eyes, into his brave, com- passionate heart. Is it then so terrible to kill an enerny in Wwar—an enemy who has surprised a secret vital to the safety of one’s self and comrades —an enemy more formidable for his know- ledge than all his army for its numbers? Carter Druse grew pale; he shook in every limb, turned faint, and saw the statuesque group before him as black figures, rising, fall- ing, moving unsteadily in arcs of circles in a fiery sky. His hand fell away from his weapon, his head slowly dropped until his face rested on the leaves in which he lay. This courageous gentleman and hardy soldier was near swooning from intensity of emotion. It was not for long; in another moment his ©) face was raised from earth, his hands resumed29 IN TAE MIDST OF LIFE — their places on the rifle, his forefinger sought the trigger; mind, heart, and eyes were clear, conscience and reason sound. He could not hope to capture that enemy; to alarm him would but send him dashing to his camp with his fatal news. The duty of the soldier was plain: the man must be shot dead from am- bush—without warning, without a moment’s spiritual preparation, with never so much as an unspoken prayer, he must be sent to his account. But no—there is a hope; he may have discovered nothing—perhaps he is but admiring the sublimity of the landscape. If permitted, he may turn and ride carelessly away in the direction whence he came. Surely it will be possible to judge at the in- stant of his withdrawing whether he knows. It may well be that his fixity of attention— Druse turned his head and looked through the deeps of air downward, as from the surface to the bottom of a translucent sea. He saw creeping across the green meadow a sinuous line of figures of men and horses—some fool- ish commander was permitting the soldiers of his escort to water their beasts in the open, in plain view from a dozen summits! Druse withdrew his eyes from the valley and fixed them again upon the group of mapIN THE MIDST OF LIFE 23 and horse in the sky, and again it was through the sights of his rifle. But this time his aim was at the horse. In his memory, as if they were a divine mandate, rang the words of his father at their parting: ‘‘ Whatever may oc- cur, do what you conceive to be your duty.” He was calm now. His teeth were firmly but not rigidly closed; his nerves were as tranquil as a sleeping babe’s—not a tremor affected any muscle of his body; his breathing, until suspended in the act of taking aim, was regu- lar and slow. Duty had conquered; the spirit had said'to: the bodyi°* Peace: be still:%e) Ete fired. IIl An officer of the Federal force, who in a spirit of adventure or in quest of knowledge had left the hidden divouwac in the valley, and with aimless feet had made his way to the lower edge of a small open space near the foot of the cliff, was considering what he had to gain by pushing his exploration further. At a distance of a quarter-mil e before him, but apparently at a stone’s throw, rose oti its fringe of pines the gigantic face of rock, tow- ering to so great a height above him that if made him uy to look up to where its edge cut a sharp, rugged line against the sky. It24 IN THE MIDST OF LIFE presented a clean, vertical profile against a background of blue sky to a point half the way down, and of distant hills, hardly less blue, thence to the tops of the trees at its base. Lifting his eyes to the dizzy altitude of its summit the officer saw an astonishing sight—a man on horseback riding down into the valley through the air! Straight upright sat the rider, in military fashion, with a firm seat in the saddle, a strong clutch upon the rein to hold his charger from too impetuous a plunge. From his bare head his long hair streamed upward, waving like a plume. His hands were concealed in the cloud of the horse’s lifted mane. The ani- mal’s body was as level as if every hoot- stroke encountered the resistant earth. Its motions were those of a wild gallop, but even as the officer looked they ceased, with all the legs thrown sharply forward as in the act of alighting from a leap. But this was a flight! Filled with amazement and terror by this apparition of a horseman in the sky—halt be- lieving himself the chosen scribe of some new Apocalypse, the officer was overcome by the intensity of his emotions; his legs failed him and he fell. Almost at the same instant heIN THE MIDST OF LIFE 25 heard a crashing sound in the trees—a sound that died without an echo—and all was still. The officer rose to his feet, trembling. The familiar sensation of an abraded shin re- called his dazed faculties. Pulling himself together he ran rapidly obliquely away from the cliff to a point distant from its foot; there- about he expected to find his man; and there- about he naturally failed. In the fleeting in- stant of his vision his imagination had been so wrought upon by the apparent grace and ease and intention of the marvelous perform- ance that it did not occur to him that the line of march of aérial cavalry is directly down- ward, and that he could find the objects of his search at the very foot of the cliff. A half- hour later he returned to camp. This officer was a wise man; he knew better than to tell an incredible truth. He said nothing of what he had seen. But when the commander asked him if in his scout he had learned anything of advantage to the expedi- tion he answered: “Yes, sir; there is no road leading down into this valley from the southward.” The commander, knowing better, smiled.26 IN THE MIDST OF LIFE IV After firing his shot, Private Carter Druse reloaded his rifle and resumed his watch. Ten minutes had hardly passed when a Fed- eral sergeant crept cautiously to him on hands and knees. Druse neither turned his head nor looked at him, but lay without motion or sign of recognition. “Did you fire?” the sergeant whispered. é¢ Wes.?? At what?” “ A horse. It was standing on yonder rock —pretty far out. You see it is no longer there. It went over the cliff.” The man’s face was white, but he showed no other sign of emotion. Having answered, he turned away his eyes and said no more. The sergeant did not understand. “See here, Druse,” he said, after a mo- ment’s silence, “it’s no use making a mys- tery. J order you to report. Was there any- body on the horse?” c¢ Yes.” Wellies “ Mi father.” The sergeant rose to his feet and walked away. “Good God!” he said.EN? THE MIDST OF sir R 27 AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE I MAN stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet be- low. The man’s hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was at- tached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the sleepers sup- porting 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 sheriff. At ashort remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. He was a cap- tain. 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—a28 IN THE MIDST OF LIFE 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 centre 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 stockade of vertical tree trunks, loop- holed for rifles; with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the bridge. Mid- way of the slope between bridge and fort were the spectators—a single company of infantry in line, at ‘‘ parade rest,” the butts of the 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 centre of the bridge, not a man moved. The company faced the bridge, staring ston- ily, motionless. The sentinels, facing theIN; THE OMIDST OF TIbn 29 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 mustache 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 beenSe — : ————e 309 IN THE MIDST OF LIFE standing. The sergeant turned to the captain, saluted and placed himself immediately be- hind 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. Ata signal from the former the latter would step aside, the plank would tilt and the condemned man go down between two ties. The arrangement com- mended itself to his judgment 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 off dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down the current. How slowly it appeared to move! What a ae ish 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 dist-IN THE MIDST OF LIFE 31 ance down the stream, the fort, the soldiers, the piece of drift—all had distracted him. And now he became conscious of a new dis- turbance. Striking through the thought of his dear ones was a sound which he could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp, dist- inct, 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 dis- tant or near by—it seemed both. Its recurr- ence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell. He awaited each stroke witl impatience and—he knew not why—appre hension. ‘The intervals of silence grew pro- gressively longer; the delays became madden ing. With their greater infrequency th sounds increased in strength and sharpness They hurt his ear like the thrust of a knife he feared he would shriek. What he hear was the ticking of his watch. He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below ‘him. “If’I could tree 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,a ae 4 32 IN THE MIDST OF LIFE 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 fam- ily. Being a slave owner and like other slave owners a politician he was naturally an orig- inal secessionist and ardently devoied to the Southern cause. Circumstances of an imper- ious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking service with the gallant army that had fought the dis- astrous 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 op- portunity 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 per- form in aid of the South, no adventure too perilous for him to undertake if consistentIN THE MIDST OF LIFE 33 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 en- trance 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 ap- proached 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 an- other advance. They have reached the Owl Creek bridge, put it in order and built a stock- ade 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.” “Ts there no force on this side the creek?” “Only a picket post haif a mile out, on the34 IN THE MIDST OF LIFE 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 accom- plish?”’ 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 ceremon- iously, 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. Ii! As Peyton Farquhar fell straight down- ward 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 |IN THE MIDST OF LIFE 35 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 intolerabld¢ temperature. As to his head, he was cont scious of nothing but a feeling of fulness—of congestion. ‘These sensations were unaccom- panied 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 the36 IN THE MIDST OF LIFE 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 com- fortable. ‘‘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 fale, 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 ob- serve 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 up- ward, 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 hisneck. ‘They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations re- sembling those of a water-snake. ‘ Put it back, put it back!” He thought he shouted these words to his hands, for the undoing ofIN THE MIDST OF LIFE 37 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 q great draught of air, which instantly he ex: pelled in a shriek! He was now in full possession of his phys- ical senses. ‘They were, indeed, preternatu- rally 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—saw the very insects upon them: | the locusts, the brilliant-bodied flies, the gray | — } j388 IN THE MIDST OF LIFE spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the j 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 risingIN THE MIDST OF LIFE 39 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 remem- bered having read that gray eyes were keen- est, and that all famous markmen had them. | Nevertheless, this one had missed. A counter-swirl had caught Farquhar and turned him half round; he was again look- ing into 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 dis tinctness that pierced and subdued all othet 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 piti lessly—with what an even, calm intonation, presaging, and enforcing tranquillity in the men—with what accurately measured inter- vais fell those crue] words: “Attention, company! .. . Shoulder arms! Readyiliis Sev Atm! se -binele Farquhar dived—dived as deeply as he could. The water roared in his ears like the ————————— Sreeee ee eee mee rere 40 IN THE MIDST OF LIFE voice of Niagara, yet he heard the dulled thunder of the volley and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of metal, singu-| larly flattened, oscillating slowly downward.| Some of them touched him on the face and| hands, then fell away, continuing their des4 cent. One lodged between his collar . neck; it was uncomfortably warm and hg sna nen 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 down stream—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 senti- nels fired again, independently and ineffect- ually. 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 SAY of lightning. Pe hetomeer, 4S 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 toIN THE MIDST OF LIFE 41 fire at will. God help me, I cannot dodge them all!” An appalling plash 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 ex- plosion 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 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 be- yond. “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 was42 IN THE MIDST OF LIFE 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.a 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 mo- tion, the abrasion of one of his hands on the gravel, restored him, and he wept with de- light. 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 zolian harps. He had no wish to perfect his escape—was content to remain in that enchanting spot until re- taken. A whiz and 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 toIN THE MIDST OF LIFE 43 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 in- terminable; 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 revela- tion. By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famishing. The thought of his wife and child- ren 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. Over- head, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars looking un- familiar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret and malign signific- ance. The wood on either side was full of singular noises, among which-—-once, twice,Le 44 IN THE MIDST OF LIFE and again—he distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue. |—is neck was in pain and lifting his hand jto it he found it horribly swollen. He knew lthat 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 recov- ered 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 atti- tude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He springs forward with extended arms. As he is about to claspIN THE MIDST OF LIFE ADS 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.46 IN THE MIDST OF LIFE CHICKAMAUGA NE sunnyautumn afternoon a child strayed away from its rude home ina small field and entered a forest unob- served. It was happy in a new sense of freedom from control, happy in the oppor- tunity of exploration and adventure; for this child’s spirit, in bodies of its ancestors, had for thousands of years been trained to memorable feats of discovery and conquest—victories in battles whose critical moments were centuries, whose victors’ camps were cities of hewn stone. From the cradle of its race it had conquered its way through two continents and passing a great sea had penetrated a third, there to be born to war and dominion as a heritage. The child was a boy aged about six years, the son of a poor planter. In his younger manhood the father had been a soldier, had fought against naked savages and followed the flag of his country into the capital of a civilized race to the far South. In the peace- ful life of a planter the warrior-fire survived ; once kindled, it is never extinguished. The man loved military books and pictures and theIN THE MIDST OF LIFE 47 boy had understood enough to make himself a wooden sword, though even the eye of his father would hardly have known it for what it was. This weapon he now bore bravely, as became the son of an heroic race, and pausing now and again in the sunny space of the forest assumed, with some exaggeration, the postures of aggression and defense that he had been taught by the engraver’s art. Made reckless by the ease with which he overcame invisible foes attempting to stay his advance, he com- mitted the common enough military error of pushing the pursuit to a dangerous extreme, until he found himself upon the margin of a wide but shallow brook, whose rapid waters barred his direct advance against the flying foe that had crossed with illogical ease. But the intrepid victor was not to be baffled; the spirit of the race which had passed the great sea burned unconquerable in that small breast and would not be denied. Finding a place where some bowlders in the bed of the stream lay but a step or a leap apart, he made his way across and fell again upon the rear-guard of his imaginary foe, putting all to the sword. Now that the battle had been won, pru dence required that he withdraw to his base of operations. Alas; like many a mightier4g IN THE MIDST OF LIFE conqueror, and like one, the mightiest, he cculd not curb the lust for war, Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star. Advancing from the bank of the creek he suddenly found himself confronted with a new and more formidable enemy: in the path that he was following, sat, bolt upright, with ears erect and paws suspended before it, a rabbit! With a startled cry the child turned and fled, he knew not in what direction, call- ing with inarticulate cries for his mother, weeping, stumbling, his tender skin cruelly torn by brambles, his little heart beating hard with terror—breathless, blind with tears—lost in the forest! Then, for more than an hour, he wandered with erring feet through the tangled undergrowth, till at last, overcome by fatigue, he lay down in a narrow space be- tween two rocks, within a few yards of the stream and still grasping his toy sword, no longer a weapon but a companion, sobbed himself to sleep. The wood birds sang merrily above his head; the squirrels, whisk- ing their bravery of tail, ran barking from tree to tree, unconscious of the pity of it, and somewhere far away was a strange, mufiled thunder, as if the partridges were drummingIN THE MIDST OF LIFE 49 in celebration of nature’s victory over the son of her immemorial enslavers. And back at the little plantation, where white men and black were hastily searching the fields and hedges in alarm, a mother’s heart was break- ing for her missing child. Hours passed, and then the little sleeper rose to his feet. The chill of the evening was in his limbs, the fear of the gloom in his heart. But he had rested, and he no longer wept. With some blind instinct which impelled to action he struggled through the undergrowth about him and came to a more open ground— on his right the brook, to the left a gentle ac- clivity studded with infrequent trees; over all, the gathering gloom of twilight. A thin, ghostly mist rose along the water. It fright- ened and repelled him; instead of recrossing, in the direction whence he had come, he turned his back upon it, and went forward toward the dark inclosing wood. Suddenly he saw before him a strange moving object which he took to be some large animal—a dog, a pig—he could not name it; perhaps it was a bear. He had seen pictures of bears, but knew of nothing to their discredit and had vaguely wished to meet one. But something in form or movement of this object—some