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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce

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&nbsp;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.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;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.

Genre Civil War short stories genre, historic fiction in their realistic portrayal of actual events, soldiers, and battles. Since Bierce served in the War, he coupled his gifted writing abilities with his credible and dramatic stories that brought the complexities of war to life for his readers. Themes Defenders&nbsp;- A person must be willing to defend his way of life, culture, and family when threatened by an enemy no matter the cost of it. Safety versus risk&nbsp;- Safety and home is contrasted sharply with danger and fighting the enemy. Time&nbsp;- A constant theme Bierce uses throughout the story, both in the order of events. Time slows down the closer he comes to death . Time relates to Farquahar's emotions. The pendulum represents the swing of his feelings from fear, grief, loss, love, courage to escape. It's a symbol of time. Motion: Another prevailing theme Bierce uses to describe the river, Farquhar's emotions, and his lack of motion (bound to be hanged), and his sudden and fateful motion falling from the bridge after his neck snaps and he's dead. Finally, his vision of his own escape, swimming and diving in the river dodging gunshots, then movement towards the vision of his wife. Sound: Bierce describes the silence by amplifying certain sounds , the raging river, while the soldiers, guns and cannon remain silent. Sound plays a role again at the end: his vision of the white light then all is darkness and silence. Life after death: The comfort of the "White Light": Particularly in the face of certain death, we have the power to visualize our own escape to safety. Rules define actions: Soldiers adhere to the military's rules of conduct for hanging an enemy; the rules also prescribe silence in honor of Death. Farquahar perceives his own duty or rules for defending the Confederacy. The Owl Creek bridge suggests&nbsp;connection and transition. Driftwood, as it makes its way downriver, represents both Farquhar’s unattainable freedom and Farquhar himself as he begins imagining his own escape in the water. A distorted sensory experience and the color gray throughout the story are the <a href="https://www.sparknotes.com/short-stories/an-occurrence-at-owl-creek-bridge/motifs/">motifs</a> of the story.

Peyton Farquhar&nbsp;- First introduced to the reader as "A Man." Bierce takes his time describing Farquhar who is to be hanged from a bridge, unfolding clues slowly about Farquhar's identity and status, immediately providing an engaging "hook" to draw in the reader. Gradually, we learn that he's not a soldier and he's being hanged for crimes against the Union. Later, he is described as a 35 years old civilian, a Southern planter with good looks, lacking the look of a "vulgar assassin." Union soldiers&nbsp;- The captain, first lieutenant, and sentinels are charged with executing Farquhar on the Owl Creek Bridge. The rest of the company is totally silent, respecting the rules for observing impending death. Farquhar's wife&nbsp;- Though never appearing in the story, she represents the safety and comfort of home, which Farquhar chose to jeopardize when he attempted to sabotage the Union's advances by burning the bridge. At the end of the story, Farquhar has a vision of reuniting with her, as part of his "white light" virtual escape. Bierce may also intend to have her represent Heaven or spiritual resilience. Union Scout posing as Confederate&nbsp;- The spy disguised as a Confederate soldier who informed Farquhar about the Union's plan to advance at the Owl Creek Bridge, and planted the idea that Farquhar burn it down to stop them.

&nbsp;Overhead, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great garden 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 forward 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.

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce, (born June 24, 1842, Meigs county,&nbsp;Ohio, U.S.—died 1914, Mexico?), American newspaperman,&nbsp;wit, satirist, and author of&nbsp;sardonic&nbsp;short stories based on themes of death and horror. His life ended in an unsolved mystery. Reared in Kosciusko county,&nbsp;Indiana, Bierce became a printer’s devil (apprentice) on a Warsaw, Indiana, paper after about a year in&nbsp;high school. In 1861 he enlisted in the 9th Indiana Volunteers and fought in a number of&nbsp;American Civil War&nbsp;battles, including Shiloh and Chickamauga. After being seriously wounded in the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in 1864, he served until January 1865, and he received a merit promotion to major in 1867.

<a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ambrose-Bierce">Source</a>

II TPeyton 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 the gallant army that 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 war time. Meanwhile he did what he could. No service was too humble for him to perform in 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. "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."

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The students are shown different pictures from the story including the title for brainstorming. They share their thoughts and reflections within the main group. They watch the video clip and try to understand what the story is about without reading any other source. They annotate main ideas. In groups they share their findings. They read the whole story using the <a href="https://www.texthelp.com/en-gb/products/read-and-write-education/?utm_content=onTopic&amp;utm_medium=In-Product&amp;utm_source=In-Product&amp;utm_campaign=K-12:-Demand-Gen-Schools|InProduct-Communication">Read and Write for Google</a> or Microsoft <a href="https://www.onenote.com/learningtools">immersive reader</a>, highlight main , secondary ideas, and collect highlights, They fill in the <a href="https://suite.smarttech.com/share/df9cfb49-268d-493d-bd32-b66b98ac902a">Lumio Cornell Notes</a> and add new terms to the <a href="https://quizlet.com/_bb7gzw?x=1jqt&amp;i=4p1v1">Quizlet Study Set</a><a href="https://quizlet.com/_aqldk6?x=1jqt&amp;i=4p1v1"> </a>using the vocabulary list they made using Texthelp. They may also use <a href="https://hub.cathoven.com/?scene=analyser&amp;core=cefr">this tool </a>to help them add words depending on their CEFR level. They watch the Buncee designs about <a href="https://app.edu.buncee.com/buncee/02433552594f42f088415186951da803">historical background</a> and <a href="https://app.edu.buncee.com/buncee/c60a5c0f46a747f2bbc49a58d7c024f9">grammar</a>. They create a vocabulary list of adjectives that build a sensory atmosphere of what the setting was like and how the protagonist felt with as many sight, sound, smell , touch and taste connections as possible. They list 20 regular verbs in the past and classify them by their pronunciation into /t/ , / d / , or / ɪd / , look for transcriptions in <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page">Wiktionary</a> or<a href="https://tophonetics.com/"> Tophonetic</a>s, and add them to the larger list with meaning, inflections and related words. They join <a href="https://readlee.zendesk.com/hc/en-us">Readlee</a> and submit the assignment after creating an audio recording to showcase their learning progress which they add it to their ePortfolio. They simplify the short story and create a rebus with the picture dictionary as visual support for oral retelling. They Join Quizizz and complete the <a href="https://quizizz.com/admin/quiz/623fc5b4b5caaf001d523784">Quiz</a>. They listen to the audio and record answers that are in the audio. They rewrite the story with a different <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zwjsyrd/revision/5">ending</a> in small groups and showcase their work in the large group and get feedback. They may use <a href="https://describingwords.io/for/oak">this awesome resource</a> that will help you learn new words. &nbsp;They complete this <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSenhmGGoRSCvx_MTpUE2cReHiZYTSC2GZZ4JpVVytraYM58mw/viewform">survey</a>.

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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.&nbsp;At a signal from the former the latter would step aside, the plank would tilt and the condemned man go down between two ties.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;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.

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.&nbsp;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&nbsp;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.&nbsp;The liberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds of persons, and gentlemen are not excluded.

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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 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 olian harps. He had no wish to perfect his escape--was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken. 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 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, famishing. 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.

The setting of the story is in&nbsp;northern Alabama during the Civil War, where both Union and Confederate soldiers rarely clashed but many Confederates hailed from.

"Is there no force on this side 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 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. 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 fulness--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.

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 grey eye and remembered having read that grey 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 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 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 tranquillity in the men--with what accurately measured intervals fell those cruel words: "Attention, company! . . 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 dulled 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.

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--saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant-bodied flies, the grey 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.

Set during the American Civil War,&nbsp;"An Occurrence at Owl Creek"&nbsp;is Bierce's most famous short story. It was first published in the&nbsp;San Francisco Examiner&nbsp;in 1890. It then appeared in Bierce's 1891 collection&nbsp;Tales of Soldiers and Civilians.

Source :<a href="https://americanliterature.com/"> https://americanliterature.com/</a>

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

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by&nbsp;<a href="https://americanliterature.com/author/ambrose-bierce">Ambrose Bierce</a>

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The story is divided into three sections. In the first section, we learn that a man is about to be hanged by a Union captain in the middle of a bridge over raging water in Northern Alabama, but he does not look like a vulgar assassin. We find out the man is Peyton Farquhar, a well-off Southern Planter who may have been a captain, or at least sympathetic to the Confederacy. Just as the soldiers step aside to commence his hanging and Farquhar can only hear the sound of his watch ticking, we move to the second section, in which we get Farquhar's back-story. Farquhar asked a soldier who appeared to be from the Confederate Army about news from the front, and learned that the Northern forces were repairing the railroads and nearing Owl Creek bridge to advance their forces. The soldier, who was actually a Union soldier in disguise, told Farquhar that any civilian caught interfering with the North's efforts would be hanged, and also mentioned how easy it would be to set the bridge on fire. In the third and last section, we are back at the scene of the hanging. It seems that Farquhar is awakened by the cold current of the river, having lost consciousness after the noose broke and he fell from the bridge. His executioners are firing at him from the bridge, he suffers a gunshot wound, comes up for air, dives back under, only to see a cannonball land within two yards. He thinks he's doomed, but then seems to be ejected from the river onto a bank, out of sight and firing range. But then he hears gunshots, escapes through the forest, taking backroads to return to his home. He seems to greet his wife, but then feels a sharp blow on his neck, sees a blinking white light, and all falls to silence and darkness. The end of the story reveals that Farquhar's broken body is still swinging from the side of Owl Creek Bridge, where he died, after all.

&nbsp;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.&nbsp;

I A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the&nbsp;swift water&nbsp;twenty feet below.&nbsp;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&nbsp;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&nbsp;stockade&nbsp;of vertical tree trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the bridge.&nbsp;

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 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 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 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.

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