Excerpt from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Ambrose Bierce
1 A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's
hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-
timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the ties supporting the rails of
the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners -- two private soldiers of the Federal army, directed by a sergeant
who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the
uniform of his rank, armed. He was a captain. A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as
'support," that is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight across the chest
-- a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear to be the duty of these two men to
know what was occurring at the center of the bridge; they merely blockaded the two ends of the foot planking that traversed it.
"A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as 'support, that is to say, vertical in front of the left
shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight across the chest -- a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect
carriage of the body."
What is the meaning of the word sentinel as it is used in this sentence from the passage?
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