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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Crucial Moment, by
+Charles Egbert Craddock        (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Crucial Moment
+       1911
+
+Author: Charles Egbert Craddock        (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
+Release Date: November 19, 2007 [EBook #23557]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRUCIAL MOMENT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CRUCIAL MOMENT
+
+By Charles Egbert Craddock
+
+1911
+
+
+A mere moment seems an inconsiderable factor in life--only its
+multiplication attaining importance and signifying time. It could
+never have occurred to Walter Hoxer that all his years of labor, the
+aggregation of the material values of industry, experience, skill,
+integrity, could be nullified by this minimum unit of space--as sudden,
+as potent, as destructive, as a stroke of lightning. But after the fact
+it did not remind' him of any agency of the angry skies; to him it was
+like one of the obstructions of the river engineers to divert the course
+of the great Mississippi, a mattress-spur, a thing insignificant in
+itself, a mere trifle of woven willow wands, set up at a crafty angle,
+against the tumultuous current Yet he had seen the swirling waves, in
+their oncoming like innumerable herds of wild horses, hesitate at
+the impact, turn aside, and go racing by, scouring out a new channel,
+leaving the old bank bereft, thrown inland, no longer the margin of the
+stream.
+
+The river was much in his mind that afternoon as he trudged along the
+county road at the base of the levee, on his way, all un-prescient, to
+meet this signal, potential moment. Outside, he knew that the water
+was standing higher than his head, rippling against the thick turf of
+Bermuda grass with which the great earthwork was covered. For the river
+was bank-full and still rising--indeed, it was feared that an overflow
+impended. However, there was as yet no break; advices from up the river
+and down the river told only of extra precautions and constant work to
+keep the barriers intact against the increasing volume of the stream.
+The favorable chances were reinforced by the fact of a singularly dry
+winter, that had so far eliminated the danger from back-water, which,
+if aggregated from rainfall in low-lying swamps, would move up slowly
+to inundate the arable lands. These were already ploughed to bed up for
+cotton, and an overflow now would mean the loss of many thousands of
+dollars to the submerged communities. The February rains had begun
+in the upper country, with a persistency and volume that bade fair
+to compensate for the long-continued drought, and thus the river was
+already booming; the bayous that drew off a vast surplusage of its
+waters were overcharged, and gradually would spread out in murky
+shallows, heavily laden with river detritus, over the low grounds
+bordering their course.
+
+"This Jeffrey levee will hold," Hoxer said to himself, as once he
+paused, his hands in his pockets, his cap on the back of his red head,
+his freckled, commonplace, square face lifted into a sort of dignity by
+the light of expert capacity and intelligence in his bluff blue eyes. He
+had been muttering to himself the details of its construction: so many
+feet across the base in proportion to its height, the width of the
+summit, the angle of the incline of its interior slope--the exterior
+being invisible, having the Mississippi River standing against it. "A
+fairly good levee, though an old one," he muttered. "I'll bet, though,
+Major Jeffrey feels mightily like Noah when he looks at all that water
+out there tearing through the country."
+
+His face clouded at the mention of the name, and as he took the short
+pipe from his month and stuck it into the pocket of his loose sack-coat
+his tread lost a certain free elasticity that had characterized it
+hitherto, and he trudged on doggedly. He had passed many acres of
+ploughed lands, the road running between the fields and the levee. The
+scene was all solitary; the sun had set, and night would presently be
+coming on. As he turned in at the big white gate that opened on a long
+avenue of oaks leading to the mansion house, he began to fear that his
+visit might be ill-timed, and that a man of his station could not hope
+for an audience so near the major's dinner-hour.
+
+It was with definite relief that he heard the gentle impact of ivory
+balls in the absolute quiet, and he remembered that a certain little
+octagonal structure with a conical red roof, in the grounds, was a
+billiard-room, for the sound betokened that he might find the owner of
+the place here.
+
+He expected to see a group of the Major's "quality friends" in the
+building but as he ascended the steps leading directly to the door, he
+perceived that the man he sought was alone. Major Jeffrey was engaged in
+idly knocking the balls about in some skilful fancy shots, his cigar
+in his mouth, and a black velvet smoking-jacket setting off to special
+advantage his dense, snowy hair, prematurely white, his long mustache,
+and his pointed imperial. His heavy white eyebrows drew frowningly
+together over arrogant dark eyes as he noted the man at the entrance.
+
+Despite Hoxer's oft-reiterated sentiment that he was "as good as anybody
+and would take nothing off nobody, and cared for no old duck just
+because he was rich," he could not speak for a moment as he felt Major
+Jeffrey's inimical eyes upon him. He lost the advantage in losing the
+salutation.
+
+"Did you get my check?" Major Jeffrey asked curtly.
+
+"Yes," Hoxer admitted; "but----"
+
+"The amount was according to contract."
+
+Hoxer felt indignant with himself that he should have allowed this
+interpretation to be placed on his presence here; then he still more
+resented the conjecture.
+
+"I have not come for extra money," he said. "That point of the
+transaction is closed."
+
+"All the points of the transaction are closed," said Major Jeffrey,
+ungraciously. There was more than the flush of the waning western sky
+on his face. He had already dined, and he was one of those wine-bibbers
+whom drink does not render genial, "I want to hear no more about it."
+
+He turned to the table, and with a skilful cue sent one ball caroming
+against two others.
+
+"But you must hear what I have got to say, Major Jeffrey," protested
+Hoxer. "I built that cross-levee for you to join your main levee, and
+done it well."
+
+"And have been well paid."
+
+"But you go and say at the store that I deviated from the line of survey
+and saved one furlong, seven poles, and five feet of levee."
+
+"And so you did."
+
+"But you know, Major, that Burbeck Lake had shrunk in the drought at the
+time of the survey, and if I'd followed the calls for the south of the
+lake, I'd had to build in four feet of water, so I drew back a mite--you
+bein' in Orleans, where I couldn't consult you, an' no time to be lost
+nohow, the river bein' then on the rise, an'----"
+
+"Look here, fellow," exclaimed Major Jeffrey, bringing the cue down on
+the table with a force that must have cut the cloth, "do you suppose
+that I have nothing better to do than to stand here to listen to your
+fool harangue?"
+
+The anger and the drink and perhaps the consciousness of being in the
+wrong were all ablaze in the Major's eyes.
+
+The two were alone; only the darkling shadows stood at tiptoe at the
+open windows, and still the flushed sky sent down a pervasive glow from
+above.
+
+Hoxer swallowed hard, gulping down his own wrath and sense of injury.
+"Major," he said blandly, trying a new deal, "I don't think you quite
+understand me."
+
+"Such a complicated proposition you are, to be sure!"
+
+Hoxer disregarded the sarcasm, the contempt in the tone.
+
+"I am not trying to rip up an old score, but you said at Winfield's
+store--at the store--that I did not build the cross levee on the
+surveyor's line; that I shortened it----"
+
+"So you did."
+
+"But as if I had shortened the levee for my own profit, when, as you
+know, it was paid for by the pole----"
+
+"You tax me with making a false impression?"
+
+An extreme revulsion of expectation harassed Hoxer. He had always known
+that Jeffrey was an exception to the general rule of the few large
+land-owners in the community, who were wont to conserve and, in fact, to
+deserve the pose of kindly patron as well as wealthy magnate. But even
+Jeffrey, he thought, would not grudge a word to set a matter straight
+that could cost him nothing and would mean much to the levee-contractor.
+Though of large experience in levee-building, Hoxer was new to the
+position of contractor, having been graduated into it, so to speak, from
+the station of foreman of a construction-gang of Irishmen. He had hoped
+for further employ in this neighborhood, in building private levees
+that, in addition to the main levees along the banks of the Mississippi,
+would aid riparian protection by turning off overflow from surcharged
+bayous and encroaching lakes in the interior. But, unluckily,
+the employer of the first enterprise he had essayed on his own
+responsibility had declared that he had deviated from the line of
+survey, usually essential to the validity of the construction, thereby
+much shortening the work; and had made this statement at Winfield's
+store--at the store!
+
+Whatever was said at the store was as if proclaimed through the
+resounding trump of fame. The store in a Mississippi neighborhood,
+frequented by the surrounding planters, great and small, was the focus
+of civilization, the dispenser of all the wares of the world, from a
+spool of thread to a two-horse wagon, the post-office, in a manner the
+club. Here, sooner or later, everybody came, and hence was the news of
+the Bend noised abroad. Hoxer's business could scarcely recover from
+this disparagement, and he had not doubted that Jeffrey would declare
+that he had said nothing to justify this impression, and that he would
+forthwith take occasion to clear it up. For were not Mr. Tompkins and
+Judge Claris, both with a severe case of "high-water scare," ready to
+contract for a joint cross levee for mutual protection from an unruly
+bayou!
+
+Therefore, with a sedulous effort, Hoxer maintained his composure when
+the Major thundered again, "You tax me with making a false impression?"
+
+"Not intentionally, Major, but----"
+
+"And who are you to judge of my motives? Told a lie by accident, did I?
+Begone, sir, or I'll break your head with this billiard cue!"
+
+He had reached the limit as he brandished the cue. He was still agile,
+vigorous, and it was scarcely possible that Hoxer could escape the blow.
+He dreaded the indignity indeed more than the hurt.
+
+"If you strike me," he declared in a single breath, between his set
+teeth, "before God, I'll shoot you with your own pistol!"
+
+It seemed a fatality that a pair in their open case should have been
+lying on the sill of the window, where their owner had just been
+cleaning and oiling them. Hoxer, of course, had no certainty that they
+were loaded, but the change in Jeffrey's expression proclaimed it. He
+was sober enough now--the shock was all sufficient--as he sprang to the
+case. The younger man was the quicker. He had one of the pistols in his
+hand before Jeffrey could level the other that he had snatched. Quicker
+to fire, too, for the weapon in Jeffrey's hand was discharged in his
+latest impulse of action after he fell to the floor, the blood
+gushing from a wound that crimsoned all the delicate whiteness of his
+shirt-front and bedabbled his snowy hair and beard.
+
+This was the moment, the signal, fatal, final moment, that the
+levee contractor had come to meet, that placed the period to his own
+existence. He lived no longer, Hoxer felt. He did not recognize as his
+own a single action hereafter, a single mental impulse. It was something
+else, standing here in the red gloaming--some foreign entity, cogently
+reasoning, swiftly acting. Self-defense--was it? And who would believe
+that? Had he found justice so alert to redress his wrongs, even in a
+little matter, that he must needs risk his neck upon it? This Thing that
+was not himself--no, never more!--had the theory of alibi in his mind
+as he stripped off his low-cut shoes and socks, thrusting them into his
+pockets, leaping from the door, and flying among the dusky shadows down
+the glooming grove, and through the gate.
+
+Dusk here, too, on the lonely county road, the vague open expanse of the
+ploughed fields glimmering to the instarred sky of a still, chill night
+of early February. He did not even wonder that there should be no hue
+and cry on his tracks--the Thing was logical! Jeffrey had doubtless
+had his pistols carried down from the mansion to him in his den in the
+billiard-room, for the avowed purpose of putting the weapons in order.
+If the shots were heard at all at the dwelling, the sound was reasonably
+ascribed to the supposed testing of the weapons. Hoxer was conscious
+that a sentiment of gratulation, of sly triumph, pervaded his mental
+processes as he sped along barefoot, like some tramp or outcast, or
+other creature of a low station. He had laid his plans well in this
+curious, involuntary cerebration. Those big, bare footprints were ample
+disguise for a well-clad, well-groomed, well-shod middle-class man of a
+skilful and lucrative employ. The next moment his heart sank like lead.
+He was followed! He heard the pursuit in the dark! Swift, unerring,
+leaping along the dusty road, leaving its own footprints as a testimony
+against him. For he had recognized its nature at last! It was his own
+dog--a little, worthless cur, that had a hide like a doormat and a heart
+as big as the United States--a waif, a stray, that had attached himself
+to the contractor at the shanties of the construction gang, and slept by
+his bed, and followed at his heel, and lived on the glance of his eye.
+
+He was off again, the dog fairly winging his way to match his master's
+speed. Hoxer could not kill him here, for the carcass would tell the
+story. But was it not told already in those tracks in the dusty road?
+What vengeance was there not written in the eccentric script of those
+queer little padded imprints of the creature's paws. Fie, fool! Was this
+the only cur-dog in the Bend? he asked himself, impatient of his fears.
+Was not the whole neighborhood swarming with canine dependents?
+
+Despite his reasoning, this endowment that was once himself had
+been affrighted by the shock. The presence of the little cur-dog had
+destroyed the complacence of his boasted ratiocination. He had only the
+instincts of flight as he struck off through the woods when the great
+expanse of cultivated lands had given way to lower ground and the wide
+liberties of the "open swamp," as it was called. This dense wilderness
+stretched out on every side; the gigantic growth of gum trees was
+leafless at this season, and without a suggestion of underbrush.
+
+The ground was as level as a floor. Generally during the winter the open
+swamp is covered with shallow water, but in this singularly droughty
+season it had remained "with dry feet," according to the phrase of that
+country. The southern moon, rising far along its levels, began to cast
+burnished golden shafts of light adown its unobstructed vistas. It might
+seem some magnificent park, with its innumerable splendid trees, its
+great expanse, and ever and anon in the distance the silver sheen of
+the waters of a lake, shining responsive to the lunar lustre as with
+an inherent lustre of its own. On and on he went, his noiseless tread
+falling as regularly as machinery, leaving miles behind him, the
+distance only to be conjectured by the lapse of time, and, after so
+long, his flagging strength. He began to notice that the open swamp was
+giving way in the vicinity of one of the lakes to the characteristics of
+the swamp proper, although the ground was still dry and the going good.
+He had traversed now and then a higher ridge on which switch-cane grew
+somewhat sparsely, but near the lake on a bluff bank a dense brake of
+the heavier cane filled the umbrageous shadows, so tall and rank and
+impenetrable a growth that once the fugitive paused to contemplate it
+with the theory that a secret intrusted to its sombre seclusions might
+be held intact forever.
+
+As he stood thus motionless in the absolute stillness, a sudden thought
+came to his mind--a sudden and terrible thought. He could not be sure
+whether he had heard aught, or whether the sight of the water suggested
+the idea. He knew that he could little longer sustain his flight,
+despite his vigor and strength. Quivering in every fibre from his long
+exertions, he set his course straight for that glimmering sheen of
+water. Encircling it were heavy shadows. Tall trees pressed close to
+the verge, where lay here a fallen branch, and there a rotten log, half
+sunken in mud and ooze, and again a great tangle of vines that had grown
+smiling to the summer sun, but now, with the slow expansion of the lake
+which was fed by a surcharged bayou, quite submerged in a fretwork of
+miry strands. The margin was fringed with saw-grass, thick and prickly,
+and his practised eye could discern where the original banks lay by the
+spears thrust up above the surface a score of feet away. Thus he was
+sure of his depth as he waded out staunchly, despite the cruel pricks
+to his sensitive naked feet. The little dog had scant philosophy; he
+squeaked and wheezed and wailed with the pain until the man, who had no
+time to kill him now--for had he heard aught or naught?--picked him up
+and carried him in his arms, the creature licking Hoxer's hands in an
+ecstasy of gratitude, and even standing on his hind-legs on his master's
+arm to snatch a lick upon his cheek.
+
+In the darksome shadows, further and further from the spot where he had
+entered the lake, Hoxer toiled along the margin, sometimes pausing to
+listen--for had he heard aught or naught?--as long as his strength would
+suffice. Then amidst the miry debris of last summer's growths beneath
+the recent inundation he sank down in the darkness, the dog exhausted in
+his arms.
+
+This was one of those frequent crescent-shaped lakes peculiar to the
+region; sometimes, miles in extent, the lacustrine contour is not
+discernible to the glance; here the broad expanse seemed as if the body
+of water were circular and perhaps three miles in diameter.
+
+Suddenly Hoxer heard the sound that had baffled him hitherto--heard
+it again and--oh, horrible!--recognized it at last! The baying of
+bloodhounds it was, the triumphant cry that showed that the brutes had
+caught the trail and were keeping it. On and on came the iteration, ever
+louder, ever nearer, waking the echoes till wood and brake and midnight
+waters seemed to rock and sway with the sound, and the stars in the sky
+to quake in unison with the vibrations. Never at fault, never a moment's
+cessation, and presently the shouts of men and the tramp of horses
+blended with that deep, tumultuous note of blood crying to heaven for
+vengeance. Far, far, down the lake it was. Hoxer could see nothing of
+the frantic rout when the hounds paused baffled at the water-side. He
+was quick to note the changed tone of the brutes' pursuit, plaintive,
+anxious, consciously thwarted. They ran hither and thither, patrolling
+the banks, and with all their boasted instinct they could only protest
+that the fugitive took to water at this spot. But how? They could not
+say, and the men argued in vain. The lake was too broad to swim--there
+was no island, no point of vantage. A boat might have taken him off,
+and, if so, the craft would now be lying on the opposite bank. A party
+set off to skirt the edge of the lake and explore the further shores by
+order of the sheriff, for this officer, summoned by telephone, had
+come swiftly from the county town in an automobile, to the verge of the
+swamp, there accommodated with a horse by a neighboring planter. And
+then, Hoxer, lying on the elastic submerged brush, with only a portion
+of his face above the surface of the water, watched in a speechless
+ecstasy of terror the hue and cry progress on the hither side, his dog,
+half dead from exhaustion, unconscious in his arms.
+
+The moon, unmoved as ever, looked calmly down on the turmoil in the
+midst of the dense woods. The soft brilliance illumined the long,
+open vistas and gave to the sylvan intricacies an effect as of silver
+arabesques, a glittering tracery amidst the shadows. But the lunar light
+did not suffice. Great torches of pine knots, with a red and yellow
+flare and streaming pennants of smoke, darted hither and thither as the
+officer's posse searched the bosky recesses without avail.
+
+Presently a new sound!--a crashing iteration--assailed the air. A
+frantic crowd was beating the bushes about the margin of the lake and
+the verges of the almost impenetrable cane-brake. Here, however, there
+could be no hope of discovery, and suddenly a cry arose, unanimously
+iterated the next instant, "Fire the cane-brake! Fire the cane-brake!"
+
+For so late had come the rise of the river, so persistent had been the
+winter's drought, so delayed the usual inundation of the swamp, that the
+vegetation, dry as tinder, caught the sparks instantly, and the fierce
+expedient to force the fugitive to leave his supposed shelter in the
+brake, a vast woodland conflagration, was added to the terror of the
+scene. The flames flared frantically upward from the cane, itself twenty
+feet in height, and along its dense columns issued forth jets like
+the volleyings of musketry from serried ranks of troops, the illusion
+enhanced by continuous sharp, rifle-like reports, the joints of the
+growth exploding as the air within was liberated by the heat of the
+fire. All around this blazing Gehenna were swiftly running figures of
+men applying with demoniac suggestion torches here and there, that a new
+area might be involved. Others were mounted, carrying flaming torches
+aloft, the restive horses plunging in frantic terror of the fiery
+furnace in the depths of the brake, the leaping sheets of flame,
+the tumultuous clouds of smoke. Oh, a terrible fate, had the forlorn
+fugitive sought refuge here! Let us hope that no poor denizen of the
+brake, bear or panther or fox, dazed by the tumult and the terror,
+forgot which way to flee!
+
+But human energies must needs fail as time wears on. Nerves of steel
+collapse at last. The relinquishment of the quest came gradually; the
+crowd thinned; now and again the sound of rapid hoof-beats told of
+homeward-bound horsemen; languid groups stood and talked dully here
+and there, dispersing to follow a new suggestion for a space, them
+ultimately disappearing; even the fire began to die ont, and the site
+of the cane-break had become a dense, charred mass, as far as eye could
+reach, with here and there a vague blue flicker where some bed of coals
+could yet send up a jet, when at length the pale day, slow and aghast,
+came peering along the levels to view the relics of the strange events
+that had betided in the watches of the night.
+
+Hoxer had not waited for the light. Deriving a certain strength, a
+certain triumph, from the obvious fact that the end was not yet, he
+contrived in that darkest hour before the dawn to pull himself into
+a sitting posture, then to creep out to the shore. The little dog had
+seemed to be dying, but he too experienced a sort of resuscitation, and
+while he followed at first but feebly, it was not long before he was at
+heel again, although Hoxer was swift of foot, making all the speed he
+might toward his temporary home, the shacks that had been occupied
+by the construction gang. As he came within view of the poor little
+tenements, so recently vacated by the Irish ditchers, all awry and
+askew, stretching in a wavering row along the river-bank near the
+junction of the levee that he had built with the main line, his eyes
+filled. Oh, why had he not gone with the rest of the camp! he demanded
+of an untoward fate; why must he have stayed a day longer to bespeak
+the correction of an injurious error from that proud, hard man, who,
+however, had wrought his last injury on earth! Hoxer was sorry, but
+chiefly for his own plight. He felt that his deed was in self-defense,
+and but that he had no proof he would not fear to offer the plea at the
+bar of justice. As it was, however, he was sanguine of escaping without
+this jeopardy. No one had cause to suspect him. No one had seen him
+enter the Jeffrey grounds that fatal evening. There had been noised
+abroad no intimation of his grievance against the man. He had all the
+calm assurance of invisibility as he came to his abode, for a fog lay
+thick on the surface of the river and hung over all the land. He did
+not issue forth again freshly dressed till the sun was out once more,
+dispelling the vapors and conjuring the world back to sight and
+life. Nevertheless, he made no secret of having been abroad when an
+acquaintance came up the road and paused for an exchange of the news of
+the day.
+
+"But what makes ye look so durned peaked?" he broke off, gazing at Hoxer
+in surprise.
+
+Hoxer was astonished at his own composure as he replied: "Out all night.
+I was in the swamp with the posse."
+
+"See the fire! They tell me 't wuz more'n dangerous to fire the brake
+when the woods is so uncommon dry. I dunno what we would do here in the
+bottom with a forest fire."
+
+"Pretty big blaze now, sure's ye're born," Hoxer replied casually, and
+so the matter passed.
+
+Later in the day another gossip, whose acquaintance he had made during
+his levee-building venture, loitered up to talk over the absorbing
+sensation, and, sitting down on the door-step of the shack, grew
+suddenly attentive to the little dog.
+
+"What makes him limp?" he demanded abruptly.
+
+But Hoxer had not observed that he did limp.
+
+The acquaintance had taken the little animal up on his knee and was
+examining into his condition. "Gee! how did he get so footsore?"
+
+"Following me around, I reckon," Hoxer hazarded. But he saw, or thought
+he saw, a change on the stolid face of the visitor, who was unpleasantly
+impressed with the fact that the officers investigating the case had
+made inquiries concerning a small dog that, to judge by the prints in
+the road, had evidently followed the big, barefooted man who had fled
+from the Jeffrey precincts after the shooting. A rumor, too, was going
+the rounds that a detective, reputed preternaturally sharp, who had
+accompanied the sheriff to the scene of action, had examined these
+tracks in the road, and declared that the foot-print was neither that of
+a negro nor a tramp, but of a white man used to wearing shoes something
+too tightly fitting.
+
+The visitor glanced down at the substantial foot-gear of the contractor,
+fitting somewhat snugly, and thereafter he became more out of
+countenance than before and manifested some haste to get away. Hoxer
+said to himself that his anxiety whetted his apprehension. He had given
+his visitor no cause for suspicion, and doubtless the man had evolved
+none. Hoxer was glad that he was due and overdue to be gone from the
+locality. He felt that he could scarcely breathe freely again till he
+had joined the gang of Irish ditchers now establishing themselves in a
+new camp in the adjoining county, where the high stage of the river gave
+him employment in fighting water. He made up his mind, however, that
+he would not take the train thither. He dreaded to be among men, to
+encounter question and speculation, till he had time to regain control
+of his nerves, his facial expression, the tones of his voice. He
+resolved that he would quietly drift down the river in a row-boat that
+had been at his disposal during his employment here, and join his force
+already settled at their destination, without running the gauntlet
+of inspection by the neighborhood in a more formal departure. He had
+already bidden farewell to those few denizens of the Bend with whom his
+associations had been most genial. "And I'll clear out now, as I would
+have done if nothing had happened."
+
+He said no more of his intention of departure, but when night had come
+he fastened the door of the little shanty, in which were still some of
+the rude belongings of his camping outfit, with the grim determination
+that it should not soon be opened again. How long the padlock should
+beat the summons of the wind on the resounding battens he did not dream!
+
+It was close on midnight when he climbed the steep interior slope of the
+levee and stood for a moment gazing cautiously about him. The rowboat
+lay close by, for one might embark from the summit of the levee. It was
+a cloudy night, without a star. A mist clung to the face of the waters
+on the Arkansas side, but on the hither shore the atmosphere was clear,
+for he could see at a considerable distance up the river the fire of
+a "levee-watch," the stage of the water being so menacing that a guard
+must needs be on duty throughout the night. The leaping flames of the
+fire cast long lines of red and yellow and a sort of luminous brown
+far into the river, where the reflection seemed to palpitate in the
+pulsations of the current. No other sign of life was in the night scene,
+save in the opposite direction, amidst the white vapors, the gem-like
+gleam of a steamer's chimney-lights, all ruby and emerald, as a packet
+was slowly rounding the neighboring point. Hoxer could hear the impact
+of her paddles on the water, the night being so still. He had seated
+himself in the middle of the rowboat and laid hold on the oars when his
+foot struck against something soft on the bottom of the craft, partly
+under the seat in the stern. It was his bundle, he thought, containing
+the spoiled clothing that he had worn in the swamp, and which he
+intended to sink in mid-stream. His nerve was shaken, however; he could
+not restrain a sudden exclamation--this must have seemed discovery
+rather than agitation. It was as a signal for premature action. He was
+suddenly seized from behind, his arms held down against his sides, his
+hands close together. The bundle in the stern rose all at once to the
+stature of a man.
+
+The touch of cold metal, a sharp, quick click,--and he was captured and
+handcuffed within the space of ten seconds.
+
+A terrible struggle ensued, which his great strength but sufficed to
+prolong. His wild, hoarse cries of rage and desperation seemed to beat
+against the sky; back and forth the dark riparian forests repeated them
+with the effect of varying distance in the echoes, till all the sombre
+woods seemed full of mad, frantic creatures, shrieking out their
+helpless frenzy. More than once his superior muscle sufficed to throw
+off both the officers for a moment, but to what avail? Thus manacled, he
+could not escape.
+
+Suddenly a wild, new clamor resounded from the shore. In the dusky
+uncertainty, a group of men were running down the bank, shouting out to
+the barely descried boatmen imperative warnings that they would break
+the levee in their commotion, coupled with violent threats if they did
+not desist. For the force with which the rowboat dashed against the
+summit of the levee, rebounding again and again, laden with the weight
+of three ponderous men, and endowed with all the impetus of their
+struggle, so eroded the earth that the waves had gained an entrance,
+the initial step to a crevasse that would flood the country with a
+disastrous overflow. As there was no abatement of the blows of the boat
+against the embankment, no reply nor explanation, a shot from the gun of
+one of the levee-watch came skipping lightsomely over the water as
+Hoxer was borne exhausted to the bottom of the skiff. Then, indeed,
+the sheriff of the county bethought himself to shout out his name
+and official station to the astonished group on shore, and thus,
+bullet-proof under the aegis of the law, the boat pulled out toward
+the steamer, lying in mid-stream, silently awaiting the coming of the
+officer and his prisoner, a great, towering, castellated object, half
+seen in the night, her broadside of cabin lights, and their reflection
+in the ripples, sparkling through the darkness like a chain of golden
+stars.
+
+They left no stress of curiosity behind them; naught in the delta can
+compete in interest with the threatened collapse of a levee in times
+of high water. Before the rowboat had reached the steamer's side, its
+occupants could hear the great plantation-bell ringing like mad to
+summon forth into the midnight all available hands to save the levee,
+and, looking back presently, a hundred lanterns were seen flickering
+hither and thither, far down in the dusk--no illusion this, for all
+deltaic rivers are higher in the centre than their banks--where the busy
+laborers, with thousands of gunny-sacks filled with sand, were fighting
+the Mississippi, building a barricade to fence it from the rich spoils
+it coveted.
+
+The packet, which, as it happened, was already overdue, had been
+telephoned by the officers at her last landing, and a number of men
+stood on the guards expectant. Hoxer had ceased to struggle. He looked
+up at the steamer, his pallid face and wide, distended eyes showing in
+the cabin lights, as the rowboat pulled alongside. Then as the sheriff
+directed him to rise, he stood up at his full height, stretched his
+manacled hands high above his head, and suddenly dived into deep water,
+leaving the boat rocking violently, and in danger of capsizing with the
+officers.
+
+A desperate effort was made to recover the prisoner, alive or dead--all
+in vain. A roustabout on the deck declared that in the glare of the
+steamer's search-light, thrown over the murky waters, he was seen to
+come to the surface once, but if he rose a second time it must have
+been beneath the great bulk of the packet, to go down again to the death
+awaiting him in the deeps.
+
+On the bank a little dog sat through sunshine and shadow in front of the
+door of the shack of the contractor of the levee-construction gang, and
+awaited his return with the patient devotion of his kind. Sometimes, as
+the padlock wavered in the wind, he would cock his head briskly askew,
+forecasting from the sound a step within. Sometimes the grief of absence
+and hope deferred would wring his humble heart, and he would whimper
+in an access of misery and limp about a bit. But presently he would be
+seated again, alertly upright, his eyes on the door, for the earliest
+glimpse of the face that he loved. When the overflow came at last the
+shacks of the construction gang were swept away, and the little dog was
+seen no more.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Crucial Moment, by
+Charles Egbert Craddock        (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRUCIAL MOMENT ***
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