The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce — Volume 2: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians

AN APPEAL TO THE CONSCIENCE OF GOD

Jenner Brading, attorney-at-law, lived in a cottage at the edge of the town.  Directly behind the dwelling was the forest.  Being a bachelor, and therefore, by the Draconian moral code of the time and place denied the services of the only species of domestic servant known thereabout, the “hired girl,” he boarded at the village hotel, where also was his office.  The woodside cottage was merely a lodging maintained—­at no great cost, to be sure—­as an evidence of prosperity and respectability.  It would hardly do for one to whom the local newspaper had pointed with pride as “the foremost jurist of his time” to be “homeless,” albeit he may sometimes have suspected that the words “home” and “house” were not strictly synonymous.  Indeed, his consciousness of the disparity and his will to harmonize it were matters of logical inference, for it was generally reported that soon after the cottage was built its owner had made a futile venture in the direction of marriage—­had, in truth, gone so far as to be rejected by the beautiful but eccentric daughter of Old Man Marlowe, the recluse.  This was publicly believed because he had told it himself and she had not—­a reversal of the usual order of things which could hardly fail to carry conviction.

Brading’s bedroom was at the rear of the house, with a single window facing the forest.

One night he was awakened by a noise at that window; he could hardly have said what it was like.  With a little thrill of the nerves he sat up in bed and laid hold of the revolver which, with a forethought most commendable in one addicted to the habit of sleeping on the ground floor with an open window, he had put under his pillow.  The room was in absolute darkness, but being unterrified he knew where to direct his eyes, and there he held them, awaiting in silence what further might occur.  He could now dimly discern the aperture—­a square of lighter black.  Presently there appeared at its lower edge two gleaming eyes that burned with a malignant lustre inexpressibly terrible!  Brading’s heart gave a great jump, then seemed to stand still.  A chill passed along his spine and through his hair; he felt the blood forsake his cheeks.  He could not have cried out—­not to save his life; but being a man of courage he would not, to save his life, have done so if he had been able.  Some trepidation his coward body might feel, but his spirit was of sterner stuff.  Slowly the shining eyes rose with a steady motion that seemed an approach, and slowly rose Brading’s right hand, holding the pistol.  He fired!

Blinded by the flash and stunned by the report, Brading nevertheless heard, or fancied that he heard, the wild, high scream of the panther, so human in sound, so devilish in suggestion.  Leaping from the bed he hastily clothed himself and, pistol in hand, sprang from the door, meeting two or three men who came running up from the road.  A brief explanation was followed by a cautious search of the house.  The grass was wet with dew; beneath the window it had been trodden and partly leveled for a wide space, from which a devious trail, visible in the light of a lantern, led away into the bushes.  One of the men stumbled and fell upon his hands, which as he rose and rubbed them together were slippery.  On examination they were seen to be red with blood.

An encounter, unarmed, with a wounded panther was not agreeable to their taste; all but Brading turned back.  He, with lantern and pistol, pushed courageously forward into the wood.  Passing through a difficult undergrowth he came into a small opening, and there his courage had its reward, for there he found the body of his victim.  But it was no panther.  What it was is told, even to this day, upon a weather-worn headstone in the village churchyard, and for many years was attested daily at the graveside by the bent figure and sorrow-seamed face of Old Man Marlowe, to whose soul, and to the soul of his strange, unhappy child, peace.  Peace and reparation.