occurance at owl creek

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 explosion which stirred the very river to its deeps!

These pains appeared to flash along well-defined lines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivably rapid periodicity.

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 explosion which stirred the very river to its deeps!

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.

The officer," he reasoned, "will not make that martinet's error a second time.

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.

How coldly and pitilessly--with what an even, calm intonation, presaging, and enforcing tranquility in the men--with what accurately measured intervals fell those cruel words: "Attention, company!

He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret and malign significance.

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.

Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell.

The forest seemed interminable; nowhere did he discover a break in it, not even a woodman's road.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Their movements were grotesque and horrible, their forms gigantic.