The man to be hanged is about 35. As the moment of execution approaches, he closes his eyes to picture his wife and children. A sound – like a hammer striking anvil –interrupts his thoughts. It is rhythmic, like a tolling bell, and grows louder and louder, hurting his ears. The noise is the ticking of his watch.
If he could somehow free his hands, he thinks, he could remove the noose, jump into the creek, swim to shore below the surface of the water, and escape into the woods. And then the ground beneath him disappears. He is falling. He loses consciousness when the noose catches, then awakens moments later. Excruciating pain radiates from his neck throughout his body. There is a splash. Beneath the surface of the cold, dark water, he realizes that the rope has broken. However, the noose remains tight around his neck.
After his body sinks to the bottom, it begins to rise. To be hanged and drowned is one thing, he thinks, but also to be shot is unfair. Pain in a wrist alerts him that his hands are working frantically to free themselves. They succeed, and then remove the noose. Severe pain wracks his body. His hands keep working, bringing him to the surface, where he gulps air.
He is now keenly aware of his surroundings, as if infused with superhuman perception. He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream; saw the individual trees, the locusts and the brilliant-bodied flies. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting the water. Then he plunges downwards
When he resurfaces, he is much farther downstream. The men fire again and again and he swims with the current. A vortex catches and whirls him while carrying him forward. Moments later, he reaches the left side of the creek, the southern shore. Overjoyed, he throws handfuls of sand over himself as he smells the fragrance of the forest and hears the wind rustling the tree branches. He had escaped the jaws of death!
