He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. “If I could free my hands,” he thought, “I might throw off the noose and
spring into the stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously, reach the bank, take to the woods and get away home. My home, thank God, is as yet outside their lines; my wife and little ones are still beyond the invader’s farthest advance.” As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed man’s brain rather than evolved from it the captain nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside.
Based on the excerpt, which is the most reasonable plot prediction?
In these lines, we are never actually told that an execution is about to take place. However, we can assume this from the details in the excerpt. The man tells us that he wants to free his hands. He also tells us that a noose is waiting for him, and that he is planning to scape. Towards the end of the paragraph, we learn that the captain nodded and the sergeant stepped aside, which most likely indicates that the execution will begin.
