gled. When Booth turned his face of statuesque beauty lit by eyes
flashing with insane desperation and cried, "_Sic semper tyrannis_," they
were only confirmed in this impression.

A sudden, piercing scream from Mrs. Lincoln, quivering, soul harrowing!
Leaning far out of the box, from ashen cheeks and lips leaped the piteous
cry of appeal, her hand pointing to the retreating figure:

"The President is shot! He has killed the President!"

Every heart stood still for one awful moment. The brain refused to record
the message--and then the storm burst!

A wild roar of helpless fury and despair! Men hurled themselves over the
footlights in vain pursuit of the assassin. Already the clatter of his
horse's feet could be heard in the distance. A surgeon threw himself
against the door of the box, but it had been barred within by the cunning
hand. Another leaped on the stage, and the people lifted him up in their
arms and over the fatal railing.

Women began to faint, and strong men trampled down the weak in mad rushes
from side to side.

The stage in a moment was a seething mass of crazed men, among them the
actors and actresses in costumes and painted faces, their mortal terror
shining through the rouge. They passed water up to the box, and some tried
to climb up and enter it.

The two hundred soldiers of the President's guard suddenly burst in, and,
amid screams and groans of the weak and injured, stormed the house with
fixed bayonets, cursing, yelling, and shouting at the top of their
voices:

"Clear out! Clear out! You sons of hell!"

One of them suddenly bore down with fixed bayonet toward Phil.

Margaret shrank in terror close to his side and tremblingly held his arm.

Elsie sprang forward, her face aflame, her eyes flashing fire, her little
figure tense, erect, and quivering with rage:

"How dare you, idiot, brute!"

The soldier, brought to his senses, saw Phil in full captain's uniform
before him, and suddenly drew himself up, saluting. Phil ordered him to
guard Margaret and Elsie for a moment, drew his sword, leaped between the
crazed soldiers and their victims and stopped their insane rush.

Within the box the great head lay in the surgeon's arms, the blood slowly
dripping down, and the tiny death bubbles forming on the kindly lips. They
carried him tenderly out, and another group bore after him the unconscious
wife. The people tore the seats from their fastenings and heaped them in
piles to make way for