The Horseman in the Sky

It was not for long; in another moment his face was raised from earth, his hands resumed 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 ambush--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 instant 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 foolish 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 man 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 occur, 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 regular and slow. Duty had conquered; the spirit had said to the body: "Peace, be still." He fired.

III

An officer of the Federal force, who in a spirit of adventure or in quest of knowledge had left the hidden bivouac 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-mile before him, but apparently at a stone's throw, rose from its fringe of pines the gigantic face of rock, towering to so great a height above him that it made him giddy to look up to where its edge cut a sharp, rugged line against the sky.

It 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 animal's body was as level as if every hoof-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--half believing 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 he 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 recalled his dazed faculties.

Pulling himself together he ran rapidly obliquely away from the cliff to a point distant from its foot; thereabout he expected to find his man; and thereabout he naturally failed.

In the fleeting instant of his vision his imagination had been so wrought upon by the apparent grace and ease and intention of the marvelous performance that it did not occur to him that the line of march of arial cavalry is directly downward, 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 expedition he answered:

"Yes, sir; there is no road leading down into this valley from the southward."

The commander, knowing better, smiled.

IV

After firing his shot, Private Carter Druse reloaded his rifle and resumed his watch.

Ten minutes had hardly passed when a Federal 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.

"Yes."

"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 moment's silence, "it's no use making a mystery.

I order you to report. Was there anybody on the horse?"

"Yes."

"Well?"

"My father."

The sergeant rose to his feet and walked away. "Good God!" he said.

A Horseman in the Sky 1 | A Horseman in the Sky 2

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