A SON OF 
 THE GODS 
 
 AND 
 
 A HORSEMAN 
 IN THE SKY 
 
 BIERCE 
 
George Washington Flowers 
 Memorial Collection 
 
 DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 ESTABLISHED BY THE 
 
 FAMILY OF 
 
 COLONEL FLOWERS 
 
WESTERN CLASSICS 
 N2 FOUR 
 
 A SON OF THE GODS 
 
 AND 
 
 A HORSEMAN IN THE SKY 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/sonofgodsandhorsOObier 
 
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A SON OF THE GODS 
 
 AND 
 
 A HORSEMAN IN THE SKY 
 
 BY 
 
 AMBROSE BIERCE 
 
 INCLUDING AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 W. C. MORROW 
 
 THE PHOTOGRAVURE 
 
 FRONTISPIECE AFTER A PAINTING BY 
 
 WILL JENKINS 
 
 PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO AND NEW YORK 
 
Copyright, 1907 
 by Paul Elder and Company 
 
u & <s $n 
 
 Brilliant and magnetic as are these two 
 studies by Ambrose Bierce, and especially 
 significant as coming from one who was a boy- 
 soldier in the Civil War, they merely reflect 
 one side of his original and many -faceted 
 genius. Poet, critic, satirist, fun-maker, in- 
 comparable writer of fables and masterly 
 prose sketches, a seer of startling insight, a 
 reasoner mercilessly logical, with the delicate 
 wit and keenness of an Irving or an Addi- 
 son, the dramatic quality of a Hugo, — all 
 of these, and still in the prime of his powers; 
 yet so restricted has been his output and so 
 little exploited that only the judicious few 
 have been impressed. 
 
 Although an American, he formed his bent 
 years ago in London, where he was associated 
 with the younger Hood on Fun. There he 
 laid the foundation for that reputation which 
 
 iii 
 
he today enjoys: the distinction of being the 
 last of the scholarly satirists. With that 
 training he came to San Francisco, where, 
 in an environment equally as genial, his 
 talent grew and mellowed through the years. 
 Then he was summoned to New York to as- 
 sist a newspaper fight against a great rail- 
 road, since the conclusion of which brilliant 
 campaign eastern journalism and magazine 
 work have claimed his attention. 
 
 Two volumes, c 'The Fiend's Delight 9 ' 
 and * ' Cobwebs from an Fhnpty Skull ' ' — 
 titles that would damn modern books — were 
 collections published years ago from his work 
 on London Fun. Their appearance made 
 him at once the chief wit and humorist of 
 Fngland, and, combined with his satirical 
 work on Fun, led to his engagement by friends 
 of the exiled Eugenie to conduct a periodical 
 against her enemies, who purposed to make 
 her refuge in Fngland untenable by means 
 of newspaper attacks. It is easy to imagine 
 the zest with which the chivalrous Bierce 
 
 iv 
 
plunged into preparations for the fight. But 
 the struggle never came; it was sufficient to 
 learn that Bierce would be the Richmond; the 
 attack upon the stricken ex- empress was 
 abandoned. 
 
 When he was urged in San Francisco, 
 years afterward, to write more of the inimita- 
 ble things that filled those two volumes, he 
 said that it was only fun, a boy's work. 
 Only fun! There has never been such deli- 
 cious fun since the beginning of literature, and 
 there is nothing better than fun. Yet it held 
 his own peculiar quality, which is not that 
 of American fun, — quality of a brilliant in- 
 tellectuality: the keenness of a rapier, a teas- 
 ing subtlety, a contempt for pharisaism and 
 squeamishness, and above all a fine philoso- 
 phy. While he has never lost his sense of the 
 whimsical, the grotesque, the unusual, he — 
 unfortunately, perhaps — came oftener to give 
 it the form of pure wit rather than of cajoling 
 humor. Few Americans know him as a hu- 
 morist, because his humor is not built on the 
 
broad, rough lines that are typically Ameri- 
 can . It belongs to an older civilization, yet it 
 is jollier than the English and bolder than 
 the French . 
 
 At all times his incomparable wit and satire 
 has appealed rather to the cultured, and even 
 the emotional quality of his fiction is frequent- 
 ly so profound and unusual as to be fully en- 
 joyed only by the intellectually untrammelled. 
 His writing was never for those who could 
 only read and feel, not think. 
 
 Another factor against his wider accept- 
 ance has been the infrequency and fragmen- 
 tary character of his work, particularly his 
 satire. No sustained effort in that field has 
 come from him. His satire was born largely 
 of a transient stimulus, and was evanescent. 
 Even his short stories are, generally, but 
 blinding flashes of a moment in a life. He 
 laughingly ascribes the meagerness of his 
 output to indolence ; but there may be a deeper 
 reason, of which he is unconscious. What is 
 more dampening than a seeming lack of 
 
 vi 
 
appreciation ? ' ' Tales of Soldiers and Civ- 
 ilians" had a disheartening search for an 
 established publisher j and finally was brought 
 out by an admiring merchant of San Fran- 
 cisco. It attracted so much critical attention 
 that its re-publication was soon undertaken 
 by a regular house. 
 
 Had Bierce never produced anything but 
 these prose tales, his right to a place high in 
 American letters would nevertheless be secure, 
 and of all his work, serious or otherwise, here 
 is his greatest claim to popular and permanent 
 recognition. No stories for which the Civil 
 War has furnished such dramatic setting sur- 
 pass these masterpieces of short fiction, either 
 in power of description, subtlety of touch or 
 literary finish . It is deeply to be regretted 
 that he has not given us more such prose. 
 
 W. C. MORROW. 
 
 vil 
 
A SON OF THE GODS 
 
A breezy day and a sunny land- 
 scape. An open country to right 
 and left and forward; behind, a 
 wood. In the edge of this wood, 
 facing the open but not venturing 
 into it, long lines of troops halted. 
 The wood is alive with them, and 
 full of confused noises: the occa- 
 sional rattle of wheels as a battery 
 of artillery goes into position to cover 
 the advance; the hum and murmur 
 of the soldiers talking; a sound of 
 innumerable feet in the dry leaves 
 that strew the interspaces among the 
 trees; hoarse commands of officers. 
 Detached groups of horsemen are 
 well in front — not altogether ex- 
 
 3 
 
posed — many of them intently re- 
 garding the crest of a hill a mile away 
 in the direction of the interrupted 
 advance. For this powerful army, 
 moving in battle order through a for- 
 est, has met with a formidable ob- 
 stacle — the open country. The crest 
 of that gentle hill a mile away has a 
 sinister look; it says, Beware! Along 
 it runs a stone wall extending to left 
 and right a great distance. Behind 
 the wall is a hedge; behind the hedge 
 are seen the tops of trees in rather 
 straggling order. Among the trees — 
 what ? It is necessary to know. 
 
 Yesterday, and for many days and 
 nights previously, we were fighting 
 somewhere; always there was can- 
 nonading, with occasional keen rat- 
 tlings of musketry, mingled with 
 
 4 
 
cheers, our own or the enemy's, we 
 seldom knew, attesting some tempo- 
 rary advantage. This morning at 
 daybreak the enemy was gone. We 
 have moved forward across his earth- 
 works, across which we have so often 
 vainly attempted to move before, 
 through the debris of his abandoned 
 camps, among the graves of his 
 fallen, into the woods beyond. 
 
 How curiously we regarded every- 
 thing! How odd it all seemed! 
 Nothing appeared quite familiar; the 
 most commonplace objects — an old 
 saddle, a splintered wheel, a forgotten 
 canteen — everything related some- 
 thing of the mysterious personality 
 of those strange men who had been 
 killing us. The soldier never becomes 
 wholly familiar with the conception 
 
 5 
 
of his foes as men like himself; he 
 cannot divest himself of the feeling 
 that they are another order of beings, 
 differently conditioned, in an envi- 
 ronment not altogether of the earth. 
 The smallest vestiges of them rivet 
 his attention and engage his interest. 
 He thinks of them as inaccessible; 
 and, catching an unexpected glimpse 
 of them, they appear farther away, 
 and therefore larger, than they really 
 are — like objects in a fog. He is 
 somewhat in awe of them. 
 
 From the edge of the wood lead- 
 ing up the acclivity are the tracks of 
 horses and wheels — the wheels of 
 cannon. The yellow grass is beaten 
 down by the feet of infantry. Clearly 
 they have passed this way in thou- 
 sands; they have not withdrawn by 
 
 6 
 
the country roads. This is signifi- 
 cant — it is the difference between re- 
 tiring and retreating. 
 
 That group of horsemen is our 
 commander, his staff, and escort. He 
 is facing the distant crest, holding 
 his field-glass against his eyes with 
 both hands, his elbows needlessly ele- 
 vated. It is a fashion; it seems to 
 dignify the act; we are all addicted to 
 it. Suddenly he lowers the glass and 
 says a few words to those about him. 
 Two or three aides detach themselves 
 from the group and canter away into 
 the woods, along the lines in each di- 
 rection. We did not hear his words, 
 but we knew them: "Tell General 
 X. to send forward the skirmish 
 line.' 5 Those of us who have been 
 out of place resume our positions; 
 
 7 
 
the men resting at ease straighten 
 themselves, and the ranks are re- 
 formed without a command. Some 
 of us staff officers dismount and look 
 at our saddle-girths; those already on 
 the ground remount. 
 
 Galloping rapidly along in the edge 
 of the open ground comes a young 
 officer on a snow-white horse. His 
 saddle-blanket is scarlet. What a 
 fool! No one who has ever been in 
 battle but remembers how naturally 
 every rifle turns toward the man 
 on a white horse; no one but has 
 observed how a bit of red enrages 
 the bull of battle. That such colors 
 are fashionable in military life must 
 be accepted as the most astonish- 
 ing of all the phenomena of human 
 vanity. They would seem to have 
 
 8 
 
been devised to increase the death- 
 rate. 
 
 This young officer is in full uni- 
 form, as if on parade. He is all 
 agleam with bullion, a blue-and-gold 
 edition of the Poetry of War. A 
 wave of derisive laughter runs abreast 
 of him all along the line. But how 
 handsome he is! With what careless 
 grace he sits his horse! 
 
 He reins up within a respectful 
 distance of the corps commander and 
 salutes. The old soldier nods famil- 
 iarly; he evidently knows him. A 
 brief colloquy between them is going 
 on; the young man seems to be pre- 
 ferring some request which the elder 
 one is indisposed to grant. Let us 
 ride a little nearer. Ah! too late — 
 it is ended. The young officer salutes 
 
 9 
 
again, wheels his horse, and rides 
 straight toward the crest of the hill. 
 He is deadly pale. 
 
 A thin line of skirmishers, the 
 men deployed at six paces or so 
 apart, now pushes from the wood 
 into the open. The commander 
 speaks to his bugler, who claps his 
 instrument to his lips. Tra-la-la! 
 Tra-la-laf The skirmishers halt in 
 their tracks. 
 
 Meantime the young horseman has 
 advanced a hundred yards. He is 
 riding at a walk, straight up the long 
 slope, with never a turn of the head. 
 How glorious! Gods! what would we 
 not give to be in his place — with his 
 soul! He does not draw his sabre; his 
 right hand hangs easily at his side. 
 The breeze catches the plume in his 
 10 
 
hat and flutters it smartly. The sun- 
 shine rests upon his shoulder-straps, 
 lovingly, like a visible benediction. 
 Straight on he rides. Ten thousand 
 pairs of eyes are fixed upon him with 
 an intensity that he can hardly fail 
 to feel; ten thousand hearts keep 
 quick time to the inaudible hoof- 
 beats of his snowy steed. He is not 
 alone — he draws all souls after him; 
 we are but "dead men all. But we 
 remember that we laughed! On and 
 on, straight for the hedge-lined wall, 
 he rides. Not a look backward. Oh, 
 if he would but turn — if he could 
 but see the love, the adoration, the 
 atonement! 
 
 Not a word is spoken; the popu- 
 lous depths of the forest still mur- 
 mur with their unseen and unseeing 
 
 11 
 
swarm, but all along the fringe there 
 is silence absolute. The burly com- 
 mander is an equestrian statue of 
 himself. The mounted staff officers, 
 their field-glasses up, are motionless 
 all. The line of battle in the edge 
 of the wood stands at a new kind of 
 attention, ' ' each man in the atti- 
 tude in which he was caught by the 
 consciousness of what is going on. 
 All these hardened and impenitent 
 man-killers, to whom death in its 
 awfulest forms is a fact familiar to 
 their every-day observation; who 
 sleep on hills trembling with the 
 thunder of great guns, dine in the 
 midst of streaming missiles, and play 
 at cards among the dead faces of 
 their dearest friends, — all are watch- 
 ing with suspended breath and beat- 
 
 12 
 
ing hearts the outcome of an act 
 involving the life of one man. Such 
 is the magnetism of courage and de- 
 votion. 
 
 If now you should turn your head 
 you would see a simultaneous move- 
 ment among the spectators — a start, 
 as if they had received an electric 
 shock — and looking forward again to 
 the now distant horseman you would 
 see that he has in that instant altered 
 his direction and is riding at an angle 
 to his former course. The spectators 
 suppose the sudden deflection to be 
 caused by a shot, perhaps a wound; 
 but take this field-glass and you will 
 observe that he is riding toward a 
 break in the wall and hedge. He 
 means, if not killed, to ride through 
 and overlook the country beyond. 
 
 13 
 
You are not to forget the nature 
 of this man's act; it is not permitted 
 to you to think of it as an instance 
 of bravado, nor, on the other hand, 
 a needless sacrifice of self. If the 
 enemy has not retreated, he is in 
 force on that ridge. The investiga- 
 tor will encounter nothing less than 
 a line of battle; there is no need of 
 pickets, videttes, skirmishers, to give 
 warning of our approach; our at- 
 tacking lines will be visible, con- 
 spicuous, exposed to an artillery fire 
 that will shave the ground the mo- 
 ment they break from cover, and for 
 half the distance to a sheet of rifle 
 bullets in which nothing can live. 
 In short, if the enemy is there, it 
 would be madness to attack him in 
 front; he must be maneuvered out 
 
 14 
 
by the immemorial plan of threaten- 
 ing his line of communication, as 
 necessary to his existence as to the 
 diver at the bottom of the sea his 
 air-tube. But how ascertain if the 
 enemy is there? There is but one 
 way: somebody must go and see. 
 The natural and customary thing to 
 do is to send forward a line of skir- 
 mishers. But in this case they will 
 answer in the affirmative with all 
 their lives; the enemy, crouching in 
 double ranks behind the stone wall 
 and in cover of the hedge, will wait 
 until it is possible to count each as- 
 sailant's teeth. At the first volley a 
 half of the questioning line will fall, 
 the other half before it can accom- 
 plish the predestined retreat. What 
 a price to pay for gratified curi- 
 
 15 
 
osity! At what a dear rate an army 
 must sometimes purchase knowl- 
 edge! "Let me pay all," says this 
 gallant man — this military Christ! 
 
 There is no hope except the hope 
 against hope that the crest is clear. 
 True, he might prefer capture to 
 death. So long as he advances, the 
 line will not fire, — why should it? 
 He can safely ride into the hostile 
 ranks and become a prisoner of war. 
 But this would defeat his object. 
 It would not answer our question; it 
 is necessary either that he return un- 
 harmed or be shot to death before 
 our eyes. Only so shall we know 
 how to act. If captured — why, that 
 might have been done by a half- 
 dozen stragglers. 
 
 Now begins an extraordinary con- 
 
 16 
 
test of intellect between a man and 
 an army. Our horseman, now within 
 a quarter of a mile of the crest, sud- 
 denly wheels to the left and gallops 
 in a direction parallel to it. He has 
 caught sight of his antagonist; he 
 knows all. Some slight advantage of 
 ground has enabled him to overlook 
 a part of the line. If he were here, 
 he could tell us in words. But that 
 is now hopeless; he must make the 
 best use of the few minutes of life 
 remaining to him, by compelling the 
 enemy himself to tell us as much and 
 as plainly as possible — which, natur- 
 ally, that discreet power is reluc- 
 tant to do. Not a rifleman in those 
 crouching ranks, not a cannoneer at 
 those masked and shotted guns, but 
 knows the needs of the situation, 
 
 17 
 
A SON OF THE GODS 
 
 mm 
 
 the imperative duty of forbearance. 
 Besides, there has been time enough 
 to forbid them all to fire. True, a sin- 
 gle rifle-shot might drop him and be 
 no great disclosure. But firing is in- 
 fectious — and see how rapidly he 
 moves, with never a pause except as 
 he whirls his horse about to take a 
 new direction, never directly back- 
 ward toward us, never directly for- 
 ward toward his executioners. All 
 this is visible through the glass; it 
 seems occurring within pistol-shot; 
 we see all but the enemy, whose pres- 
 ence, whose thoughts, whose motives 
 we infer. To the unaided eye there is 
 nothing but a black figure on a white 
 horse, tracing slow zigzags against 
 the slope of a distant hill — so slowly 
 they seem almost to creep. 
 
 18 
 
Now — the glass again — he has 
 tired of his failure, or sees his error, or 
 has gone mad; he is dashing directly 
 forward at the wall, as if to take it 
 at a leap, hedge and all! One moment 
 only and he wheels right about and 
 is speeding like the wind straight 
 down the slope — toward his friends, 
 toward his death! Instantly the wall 
 is topped with a fierce roll of smoke 
 for a distance of hundreds of yards 
 to right and left. This is as instantly 
 dissipated by the wind, and before 
 the rattle of the rifles reaches us, he 
 is down. No, he recovers his seat; 
 he has but pulled his horse upon its 
 haunches. They are up and away! 
 A tremendous cheer bursts from our 
 ranks, relieving the insupportable 
 tension of our feelings. And the 
 
 19 
 
horse and its rider? Yes, they are 
 up and away. Away, indeed — they 
 are making directly to our left, par- 
 allel to the now steadily blazing and 
 smoking wall. The rattle of the mus- 
 ketry is continuous, and every bul- 
 let's target is that courageous heart. 
 
 Suddenly a great bank of white 
 smoke pushes upward from behind 
 the wall. Another and another — a 
 dozen roll up before the thunder of 
 the explosions and the humming of 
 the missiles reach our ears, and the 
 missiles themselves come bounding 
 through clouds of dust into our 
 covert, knocking over here and there 
 a man and causing a temporary dis- 
 traction, a passing thought of self. 
 
 The dust drifts away. Incredi- 
 ble! — that enchanted horse and rider 
 20 
 
have passed a ravine and are climbing 
 another slope to unveil another con- 
 spiracy of silence, to thwart the will 
 of another armed host. Another mo- 
 ment and that crest too is in erup- 
 tion. The horse rears and strikes the 
 air with its forefeet. They are down 
 at last. But look again — the man 
 has detached himself from the dead 
 animal. He stands erect, motionless, 
 holding his sabre in his right hand 
 straight above his head. His face is 
 toward us. Now he lowers his hand to 
 a level with his face and moves it out- 
 ward, the blade of the sabre describ- 
 ing a downward curve. It is a sign to 
 us, to the world, to posterity. It is a 
 hero's salute to death and history. 
 
 Again the spell is broken; our men 
 attempt to cheer; they are choking 
 
 21 
 
with emotion; they utter hoarse, 
 discordant cries; they clutch their 
 weapons and press tumultuously for- 
 ward into the open. The skirmishers, 
 without orders, against orders, are 
 going forward at a keen run, like 
 hounds unleashed. Our cannon speak 
 and the enemy's now open in full 
 chorus; to right and left as far as 
 we can see, the distant crest, seem- 
 ing now so near, erects its towers 
 of cloud, and the great shot pitch 
 roaring down among our moving 
 masses. Flag after flag of ours 
 emerges from the wood, line after 
 line sweeps forth, catching the sun- 
 light on its burnished arms. The 
 rear battalions alone are in obedi- 
 ence; they preserve their proper dis- 
 tance from the insurgent front. 
 22 
 
The commander has not moved. 
 He now removes his field-glass from 
 his eyes and glances to the right and 
 left. He sees the human current 
 flowing on either side of him and his 
 huddled escort, like tide waves parted 
 by a rock. Not a sign of feeling in 
 his face; he is thinking. Again he 
 directs his eyes forward; they slowly 
 traverse that malign and awful crest. 
 He addresses a calm word to his 
 bugler. Tra-la-la! Tra-la-la! The 
 injunction has an imperiousness 
 which enforces it. It is repeated by 
 all the bugles of all the subordinate 
 commanders; the sharp metallic 
 notes assert themselves above the 
 hum of the advance, and penetrate 
 the sound of the cannon. To halt 
 is to withdraw. The colors move 
 
 23 
 
slowly back, the lines face about 
 and sullenly follow, bearing their 
 wounded; the skirmishers return, 
 gathering up the dead. 
 
 Ah, those many, many needless 
 dead ! That great soul whose beau- 
 tiful body is lying over yonder, so 
 conspicuous against the sere hill- 
 side — could it not have been spared 
 the bitter consciousness of a vain de- 
 votion? Would one exception have 
 marred too much the pitiless perfec- 
 tion of the divine, eternal plan ? 
 
 24 
 
A HORSEMAN IN THE SKY 
 
One 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 ex- 
 tended right hand loosely grasped his 
 rifle. But for the somewhat meth- 
 odical 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, that being the 
 just and legal penalty of his crime. 
 
 27 
 
The clump of laurel in which the 
 criminal lay was in the angle of a 
 road which, after ascending, south- 
 ward, 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 zigzag- 
 ging downward through the forest. 
 At the salient of that second angle 
 was a large flat rock, jutting out 
 northward, overlooking the deep val- 
 ley 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 
 
 28 
 
have commanded 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 every- 
 where except at the bottom of the 
 valley to the northward, where there 
 was a small natural meadow, through 
 which flowed a stream scarcely visi- 
 ble from the valley's rim. This open 
 ground looked hardly larger than an 
 ordinary dooryard, 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 some- 
 
 29 
 
how made its climb to the summit. 
 The configuration of the valley, in- 
 deed, was such that from this point 
 of observation it seemed entirely 
 shut in, and one could not 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 two thousand 
 feet below. 
 
 No country is so wild and difficult 
 but men will make it a theater of 
 war; concealed in the forest at the 
 bottom of that military rat-trap, in 
 which half a hundred men in pos- 
 session of the exits might have 
 starved an army to submission, lay 
 five regiments of Federal infantry. 
 They had marched all the previous 
 
 30 
 
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 failure, their 
 position would be perilous in the ex- 
 treme; and fail they surely would, 
 should accident or vigilance apprise 
 the enemy of the movement. 
 
 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 and culti- 
 vation and high living as wealth and 
 taste were able to command in the 
 
 31 
 
mountain country of Western Vir- 
 ginia. His home was but a few miles 
 from where he now lay. One morn- 
 ing he had risen from the breakfast- 
 table and said, quietly but gravely: 
 "Father, a Union regiment has ar- 
 rived at Grafton. I am going to join 
 
 • • 9 9 
 it. 
 
 The father lifted his leonine head, 
 looked at the son a moment in si- 
 lence, and replied: 'Well, go, sir, 
 and, whatever may occur, do what 
 you conceive to be your duty. Vir- 
 ginia, to which you are a traitor, 
 must get on without 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 
 
 32 
 
with us longer than a few weeks, but 
 that time is precious. It would be 
 better not to disturb her." 
 
 So Carter Druse, bowing rever- 
 ently to his father, who returned the 
 salute with a stately courtesy which 
 masked a breaking heart, left the 
 home of his childhood to go soldier- 
 ing. By conscience and courage, by 
 deeds of devotion and daring, he 
 soon commended himself to his fel- 
 lows and his officers; and it was to 
 these qualities and to some knowl- 
 edge of the country that he owed his 
 selection for his present perilous duty 
 at the extreme outpost. Neverthe- 
 less, fatigue had been stronger than 
 resolution, and he had fallen asleep. 
 What good or bad angel came in a 
 dream to rouse him from his state 
 
 33 
 
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 un- 
 sealing finger the eyes of his con- 
 sciousness — whispered into the ear of 
 his spirit the mysterious awakening 
 word which no human lips ever have 
 spoken, no human memory ever has 
 recalled. He quietly raised his fore- 
 head from his arm and looked be- 
 tween 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 
 
 34 
 
equestrian statue of impressive dig- 
 nity. The figure of the man sat the 
 figure of the horse, straight and sol- 
 dierly, but with the repose of a Gre- 
 cian god carved in the marble which 
 limits the suggestion of activity. 
 The gray costume harmonized with 
 its aerial background; the metal of 
 accoutrement and caparison was soft- 
 ened 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 
 
 35 
 
the confronting cliffs beyond. The 
 face of the rider, turned slightly 
 away, showed only an outline of 
 temple and beard; he was looking 
 downward to the bottom of the val- 
 ley. 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, 
 almost colossal, size. 
 
 For an instant Druse had a strange, 
 half-defined feeling that he had slept 
 to the end of the war and was look- 
 ing upon a noble work of art reared 
 upon that commanding eminence to 
 commemorate the deeds of an heroic 
 past of which he had been an in- 
 glorious part. The feeling was dis- 
 pelled by a slight movement of the 
 group: the horse, without moving 
 
 36 
 
its feet, had drawn its body slightly 
 backward from the verge; the man 
 remained immobile as before. Broad 
 awake and keenly alive to the sig- 
 nificance of the situation, Druse now 
 brought the butt of his rifle against 
 his cheek by cautiously pushing the 
 barrel 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, compassionate heart. 
 Is it, then, so terrible to kill an 
 enemy in war — an enemy who has 
 
 37 
 
surprised a secret vital to the safety 
 of one's self and comrades — an 
 enemy more formidable for his knowl- 
 edge than all his army for its num- 
 bers? Carter Druse grew pale; he 
 shook in every limb, turned faint, 
 and saw the statuesque group before 
 him as black figures, rising, falling, 
 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 coura- 
 geous gentleman and hardy soldier 
 was near swooning from intensity of 
 emotion. 
 
 It was not for long; in another mo- 
 ment his face was raised from earth, 
 his hands resumed their places on the 
 rifle, his forefinger sought the trigger; 
 
 38 
 
mind, heart and eyes were clear, con- 
 science and reason sound. He could 
 not hope to capture that enemy; to 
 alarm him would but send him dash- 
 ing 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 ac- 
 count. But no — there is a hope; he 
 may have discovered nothing; per- 
 haps 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 
 
 39 
 
of attention — Druse turned his head 
 and looked through the deeps of air 
 downward as from the surface of 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 hundred 
 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, 
 
 40 
 
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 sleep- 
 ing babe's — not a tremor affected 
 any muscle of his body; his breath- 
 ing, 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. 
 
 An officer of the Federal force, 
 who, in a spirit of adventure or in 
 quest of knowledge, had left the hid- 
 den 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 con- 
 sidering what he had to gain by 
 pushing his exploration further. At 
 
 41 
 
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. At some dis- 
 tance away to his right it presented 
 a clean, vertical profile against a back- 
 ground 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 sum- 
 mit, 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 
 
 42 
 
the saddle, a strong clutch upon the 
 rein to hold his charger from too im- 
 petuous 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 en- 
 countered 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 apoca- 
 lypse, the officer was overcome by 
 
 43 
 
the intensity of his emotions; his 
 legs failed him and he fell. Almost 
 at the same instant he heard a crash- 
 ing sound in the trees — a sound that 
 died without an echo — and all was 
 still. 
 
 The officer rose to his feet, trem- 
 bling. The familiar sensation of an 
 abraded shin recalled his dazed facul- 
 ties. Pulling himself together, he 
 ran obliquely away from the cliff to 
 a point distant from its foot; there- 
 about 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 per- 
 formance that it did not occur to him 
 that the line of march of aerial 
 
 44 
 
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 incredi- 
 ble truth. He said nothing of what 
 he had seen. But when the com- 
 mander 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 south- 
 ward." 
 
 The commander, knowing better, 
 smiled. 
 
 After firing his shot, Private Car- 
 ter Druse reloaded his rifle and re- 
 sumed his watch. Ten minutes had 
 
 45 
 
hardly passed when a Federal ser- 
 geant 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 ser- 
 geant did not understand. 
 
 "See here, Druse," he said, after 
 
 46 
 
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. 
 
 47 
 

Here Ends N9 Four of the Western Classics 
 Containing A Son of the Gods and A Horseman 
 in the Sky by Ambrose Bierce with an Intro- 
 duction by W. C. Morrow and a Photogravure 
 Frontispiece after a Painting by Will Jenklns 
 Of This First Edition One Thousand Copies 
 Have Been Issued Printed on Fabriano Hand- 
 made Paper the Typography Designed by J. H. 
 Nash Published by Paul Elder and Company 
 and Done into a Book for Them at the Tomoye 
 Press in the City of New York M C M V 1 1 
 
btll