through the open door came the roar of the mob without, shouting its cries:
"The President is shot!"
"Seward is murdered!"
"Where is Grant?"
"Where is Stanton?"
"To arms! To arms!"
The peal of signal guns could now be heard, the roll of drums and the hurried tramp of soldiers' feet. They marched none too soon. The mob had attacked the stockade holding ten thousand unarmed Confederate prisoners.
At the corner of the block in which the theatre stood, they seized a man who looked like a Southerner and hung him to the lamp-post. Two heroic policemen fought their way to his side and rescued him.
If the temper of the people during the war had been convulsive, now it was insane—with one mad impulse and one thought—vengeance! Horror, anger, terror, uncertainty, each passion fanned the one animal instinct into fury.
Through this awful night, with the lights still gleaming as if to mock the celebration of victory, the crowds swayed in impotent rage through the streets, while the telegraph bore on the wings of lightning the awe-inspiring news. Men caught it from the wires, and stood in silent groups weeping, and their wrath against the fallen South began to rise as the moaning of the sea under a coming storm.
At dawn, black clouds hung threatening on the eastern horizon. As the sun rose, tingeing them for a moment
