At the door he stopped and said, “Colfax, do not forget to tell the people in the mining regions, as you pass through them, what I told you this morning about the development when peace comes, and I will telegraph you at San Francisco.” Having shaken hands with both gentlemen and bidden them a pleasant good-bye, the President with his party left for the theatre. The box occupied by them was on the second tier above the stage, at the right of the audience, the entrance to it being by a door from the adjoining gallery. One, who had planned Mr. Lincoln’s assassination with extraordinary precautions against any failure, having effected an entrance by deceiving the guard, found himself in a dark corridor, of which the wall made an acute angle with the door. The assassin had previously gouged a channel from the plaster and placed near by a stout piece of board, which he next inserted between the wall and the panel of the door. Ingress then being rendered impossible, he next turned toward the entrances to the President’s box, two in number, as the box by a sliding partition could, at pleasure, be converted into two. The door at the bottom of the passage was open; that nearer the assassin was closed. Both had spring-locks, but their screws had been carefully loosened so as to yield to a slight pressure, if necessary. Resort was had to the hither door, in which a small hole had been bored, for the purpose of securing a view of the interior of the box, the door first described having first been fastened, and the discovery made that the occupants had taken seats as follows: the President in the arm-chair nearest the audience, Mrs. Lincoln next, then, after a considerable space, a Miss Clara Harris in the corner nearest the stage, and a Major H. R. Rathbone on a lounge along the further wall. The play was, “Our American Cousin.” While all were intent upon its representation, the report of a pistol first announced the presence of the assassin, who uttered the word “Freedom!” and advanced toward the front. The Major having discerned the murderer through the smoke, and grappled with him, the latter dropped his pistol and aimed with a knife at the breast of his antagonist, who caught the blow in the upper part of his left arm, but was unable to detain the desperado, though he immediately seized him again. The villain, however, leaped some twelve feet down upon the open stage, tangling his spur in the draped flag below the box and stumbling in his fall. Recovering himself immediately, he flourished his dagger, shouted “_Sic semper tyrannis_” and “_The South is avenged_,” retreated successfully through the labyrinth of the theatre--perfectly familiar to him--to his horse in waiting below. Between the deed of blood and the escape there was not the lapse of a minute. The hour was about half-past ten. There was but one pursuer, and he from the audience, but he was outstripped.