e back of the stage, and disappears.

"(Had not all this terrible scene--making the mimic ones
preposterous--had it not all been rehearsed, in blank, by Booth,
beforehand?)

"A moment's hush, incredulous--a scream--a cry of murder--Mrs. Lincoln
leaning out of the box, with ashy cheeks and lips, with involuntary cry,
pointing to the retreating figure, 'He has killed the President!'

"And still a moment's strange, incredulous suspense--and then the
deluge!--then that mixture of horror, noises, uncertainty--the sound,
somewhere back, of a horse's hoofs clattering with speed--the people
burst through chairs and railings, and break them up--that noise adds
to the queerness of the scene--there is inextricable confusion and
terror--women faint--quite feeble persons fall, and are trampled
on--many cries of agony are heard--the broad stage suddenly fills
to suffocation with a dense and motley crowd, like some horrible
carnival--the audience rush generally upon it--at least the strong
men do--the actors and actresses are there in their play costumes
and painted faces, with mortal fright showing through the
rouge--some trembling, some in tears--the screams and calls, confused
talk--redoubled, trebled--two or three manage to pass up water from the
stage to the President's box, others try to clamber up, etc., etc.

"In the midst of all this the soldiers of the President's Guard,
with others, suddenly drawn to the scene, burst in--some two hundred
altogether--they storm the house, through all the tiers, especially the
upper ones--inflamed with fury, literally charging the audience with
fixed bayonets, muskets and pistols, shouting, 'Clear out! clear out!'

"Such a wild scene, or a suggestion of it, rather, inside the playhouse
that night!

"Outside, too, in the atmosphere of shock and craze, crowds of people
filled with frenzy, ready to seize any outlet for it, came near
committing murder several times on innocent individuals.

"One such case was particularly exciting. The infuriated crowd, through
some chance, got started against one man, either for words he uttered,
or perhaps without any cause at all, and were proceeding to hang him
at once to a neighboring lamp-post, when he was rescued by a few heroic
policemen, who placed him in their midst and fought their way slowly and
amid great peril toward the station-house.

"It was a fitting episode of the whole affair. The crowd rushing
and eddying to and fro, the night, the y