Lincoln, the unknown

LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN•211Then a woman's shriek pierced the theater and all eyes turnedto the draped box. Major Rathbone, blood gushing from onearm, shouted: "Stop that man! Stop him! He has killed thePresident!"A moment of silence. A wisp of smoke floating out of thePresidential box. Then the suspense broke. Terror and mad excitementseized the audience. They burst through the seats,wrenching the chairs from the floor, broke over railings, and, tryingto clamber upon the stage, tore one another down andtrampled upon the old and feeble. Bones were broken in thecrush, women screamed and fainted, and shrieks of agony mingledwith fierce yells of "Hang him!" . . . "Shoot him!" . . ."Burn the theater!"Some one shouted that the playhouse itself was to be bombed.The fury of the panic doubled and trebled. A company of franticsoldiers dashed into the theater at double-quick, and chargedthe audience with muskets and fixed bayonets, shouting: "Getout of here! Damn you, get out!"Physicians from the audience examined the President'swound; and, knowing it to be fatal, refused to have the dyingman jolted over the cobblestones back to the White House.So four soldiers lifted him up—two at his shoulders and two athis feet—and carried his long, sagging body out of the theaterand into the street, where blood dripping from his wound reddenedthe pavement. Men knelt to stain their handkerchiefs withit—handkerchiefs which they would treasure a lifetime, and,dying, bequeath as priceless legacies to their children.With flashing sabers and rearing horses, the cavalry cleared aspace; and loving hands bore the stricken President across thestreet to a cheap lodging-house owned by a tailor, stretched hislong frame diagonally across a sagging bed far too short forhim, and pulled the bed over to a dismal gas-jet that flickeredyellow light.It was a hall room nine by seventeen feet in size, with a cheapreproduction of Rosa Bonheur's painting of "The Horse Fair"hanging above the bed.The news of the tragedy swept over Washington like a tornado;and, racing in its wake, came the impact of another disaster:at the same hour of the attack on Lincoln, SecretarySeward had been stabbed in bed and was not expected to live.Out of these black facts, fearsome rumors shot through the nightlike chain-lightning: Vice-President Johnson had been slain.