"I must get in," said Tom.
"You shan't," snarled the man, sure that he was being imposed upon.
The doorkeeper, attracted by the little row, had come towards the ticket-window. He swung his right arm with a threatening gesture. As Tom started towards him he struck the threatened blow, but his clenched fist hit nothing. The boy had ducked under his arm and had fled into the theater. The doorkeeper pursued him. But Tom was now making his way like a weasel through the crowd. He had caught sight of Wilkes Booth nearly at the top of the right-hand staircase that led to the aisle from which the upper right-hand box was reached. Without any actual premonition of the coming tragedy which was to echo around the world upon the morrow, he still felt that Booth had in mind some evil deed and that it was his duty to prevent him. As he struggled toward the foot of the stairway, Booth saw him, recognized him and smiled at him, a smile of triumphant hideous evil. Tom yelled:
"Spy! Confederate spy! Stop him! Let me follow!"
Upon the startled crowd there fell a sudden stillness. Nobody laid hand upon Booth, but everybody made way for the frantic boy who rushed up the stairway as the scoundrel he chased ran down the corridor. He clutched the newel post at the head of the stairway just as Booth flung open the door of the box. Tom ran towards him.
The door of the box was violently jerked open. Wilkes Booth sprang across the threshold. He put his pistol close to the head of the unarmed man he meant to murder. He fired. The greatest American sank forward into his wife's arms. High above her shrieks rose the actor's trained voice. He leaped upon the balustrade of the box, shouted "Sic semper tyrannis!" and jumped down to the stage. He was booted and spurred for his escape. His horse was held for him near the stage-door. One of his spurs caught upon the curtain of the box, so that he stumbled and fell heavily. But he had played his part upon that stage many a time before. He knew every nook and cranny of the mysterious labyrinth behind the footlights. He rose to his feet, disregarding a twisted ankle, and rushed to safety—for a few hours. He reached his horse and galloped into the calm night of God, profaned forever by this hideous crime of a besotted fanatic.
The martyred President was taken to a neighboring house, No. 453 Tenth Street. In a back hall bedroom, upon the first floor, that that was still Abraham Lincoln, but was soon to cease to be so, was laid upon a narrow bed. Tom had helped to carry him there. Wife and son, John Hay, Secretary-of-War Stanton, and a few others crowded into the tiny room. Doctors worked feverishly over the dying man. Their skill was in vain. The slow and regular breathing grew fainter. The automatic moaning ceased. A look of unspeakable peace came to the face the world now knows so well. In a solemn hush, at twenty-two minutes after seven in the morning of Saturday, April 15, 1865, the great soul of Abraham Lincoln went back to the God Who had given him to America and to the world. A moment later Stanton spoke:
"Now he belongs to the ages."