Internet Accuracy Project

Home
Table of Contents
Place Name Index
Biographical Index
Reference Book Errors
Unusual Town Names
Commonly Confused Words
Spell Checker Fun
Free eBooks (A - D)
Free eBooks (E - Hd)
Free eBooks (He - Hz)
Free eBooks (I - L)
Free eBooks (M - P)
Free eBooks (Q - R)
Free eBooks (S - V)
Free eBooks (W - Z)
To Build a Fire
The Lost Blend
The Last Lesson
Short Poems by Keats
Christina Rossetti Poetry
Short Robert Browning Poems
Weights and Measurements
U.S. Mail Holidays
U.S. Postage Rates
Wind Chill Charts
Heat Index Charts
U.S. Time Zones
Roman Numerals
U.S. Presidents
2012 Calendar
2013 Calendar
Frequently Asked Questions
Recent Updates
Blog
Contact Us
An Arrest by Ambrose Bierce

The following is the complete text of Ambrose Bierce's An Arrest. The various books, short stories and poems we offer are presented free of charge with absolutely no advertising as a public service from Internet Accuracy Project.


Visit these other works by Ambrose Bierce
The Applicant
At Old Man Eckert's
A Baby Tramp
A Baffled Ambuscade
The Baptism of Dobsho
The Boarded Window
The Bubble Reputation
Charles Ashmore's Trail
The City of the Gone Away
A Cold Greeting
Corrupting the Press
The Coup de Grace
Curried Cow
A Diagnosis of Death
The Difficulty of Crossing a Field
The Failure of Hope and Wandel
A Fruitless Assignment
George Thurston
Haita the Shepherd
A Horseman in the Sky
The Hypnotist
An Imperfect Conflagration
An Inhabitant of Carcosa
The Isle of Pines
John Bartine's Watch

Killed at Resaca
The Little Story
A Man with Two Lives
Mr. Masthead, Journalist
Mr. Swiddler's Flip-Flap
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Oil of Dog
One Officer, One Man
The Other Lodgers
Present at a Hanging
A Providential Intimation
A Psychological Shipwreck
The Race at Left Bower
A Revolt of the Gods
A Shipwreckollection
A Son of the Gods
The Spook House
Staley Fleming's Hallucination
The Thing at Nolan
Three and One Are One
Two Military Executions
An Unfinished Race
A Vine on a House
The Widower Turmore
A Wireless Message

To see all available titles by other authors, drop by our index of free books alphabetized by author or arranged alphabetically by title.

Potential uses for the free books, stories and poetry we offer
* Rediscovering an old favorite book or short story.
* Bibliophiles expanding their collection of public domain ebooks at no cost.
* Teachers trying to locate a free online copy of a book for use in the classroom.
* Actors or writers looking for free material to adapt for use in the theater or on stage.
* Students or educators looking for material to adapt for a public performance or in drama class.


NOTE: We try to present these classic literary works as they originally appeared in print. As such, they sometimes contain adult themes, offensive language, typographical errors, and often utilize unconventional, older, obsolete or intentionally incorrect spelling and/or punctuation conventions.

An Arrest by Ambrose Bierce

AN ARREST

by Ambrose Bierce


Having murdered his brother-in-law, Orrin Brower of Kentucky was a fugitive from justice. From the county jail where he had been confined to await his trial he had escaped by knocking down his jailer with an iron bar, robbing him of his keys and, opening the outer door, walking out into the night. The jailer being unarmed, Brower got no weapon with which to defend his recovered liberty. As soon as he was out of the town he had the folly to enter a forest; this was many years ago, when that region was wilder than it is now.

The night was pretty dark, with neither moon nor stars visible, and as Brower had never dwelt thereabout, and knew nothing of the lay of the land, he was, naturally, not long in losing himself. He could not have said if he were getting farther away from the town or going back to it--a most important matter to Orrin Brower. He knew that in either case a posse of citizens with a pack of bloodhounds would soon be on his track and his chance of escape was very slender; but he did not wish to assist in his own pursuit. Even an added hour of freedom was worth having.

Suddenly he emerged from the forest into an old road, and there before him saw, indistinctly, the figure of a man, motionless in the gloom. It was too late to retreat: the fugitive felt that at the first movement back toward the wood he would be, as he afterward explained, "filled with buckshot." So the two stood there like trees, Brower nearly suffocated by the activity of his own heart; the other--the emotions of the other are not recorded.

A moment later--it may have been an hour--the moon sailed into a patch of unclouded sky and the hunted man saw that visible embodiment of Law lift an arm and point significantly toward and beyond him. He understood. Turning his back to his captor, he walked submissively away in the direction indicated, looking to neither the right nor the left; hardly daring to breathe, his head and back actually aching with a prophecy of buckshot.

Brower was as courageous a criminal as ever lived to be hanged; that was shown by the conditions of awful personal peril in which he had coolly killed his brother-in-law. It is needless to relate them here; they came out at his trial, and the revelation of his calmness in confronting them came near to saving his neck. But what would you have?--when a brave man is beaten, he submits.

So they pursued their journey jailward along the old road through the woods. Only once did Brower venture a turn of the head: just once, when he was in deep shadow and he knew that the other was in moonlight, he looked backward. His captor was Burton Duff, the jailer, as white as death and bearing upon his brow the livid mark of the iron bar. Orrin Brower had no further curiosity.

Eventually they entered the town, which was all alight, but deserted; only the women and children remained, and they were off the streets. Straight toward the jail the criminal held his way. Straight up to the main entrance he walked, laid his hand upon the knob of the heavy iron door, pushed it open without command, entered and found himself in the presence of a half-dozen armed men. Then he turned. Nobody else entered.

On a table in the corridor lay the dead body of Burton Duff.



~~~~~~~ THE END ~~~~~~~

If you find the above classic literature useful, please link to this page from your webpage, blog or website. You can also help support Internet Accuracy Project's work by contributing surplus office supplies, or used books. Alternatively, consider recommending us to your friends and colleagues. Thank you in advance!

Website Copyright © 2005-2012 INTERNET ACCURACY PROJECT. All rights reserved. BY ACCESSING THIS SITE YOU ARE STATING THAT YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS regardless of whether you reside in the United States of America or not. Our Privacy Policy. This page was last updated January 1, 2012.