In "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", the meaning that is conveyed by the words "then all is darkness and silence!" is that Farquhar has been hanged.
It later on continues with <em>"Peyton Fahrquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge"</em>. The idea that <em>"all is darkness is silent" </em>pinpoints exactly when it happened. Moments before he died, he was seeing different moments of his life, and then nothing but the silent blackness of death.
