About ten o'clock that night, the audience was laughing at the absurd play; the President's party were as much amused as any. Suddenly, there was a pistol shot. A moment more and a woman's voice rang out in a sharp cry. An instant sense of disaster brought the audience startled to their feet. Two men were glimpsed struggling toward the front of the President's box. One broke away, leaped down on to the stage, flourished a knife and shouted, "Sic semper tyrannis!" Then he vanished through the flies. It was Booth, whose plans had been completely successful. He had made his way without interruption to within a few feet of Lincoln. At point-blank distance, he had shot him from behind, through the head. In the confusion which ensued, he escaped from the theatre; fled from the city; was pursued; and was himself shot and killed a few days later. The bullet of the assassin had entered the brain, causing instant unconsciousness. The dying President was removed to a house on Tenth Street, No. 453, where he was laid on a bed in a small room at the rear of the hall on the ground floor.(12) Swift panic took possession of the city. "A crowd of people rushed instinctively to the White House, and bursting through the doors, shouted the dreadful news to Robert Lincoln and Major Hay who sat gossiping in an upper room. . . . They ran down-stairs. Finding a carriage at the door, they entered it and drove to Tenth Street."(13) To right and left eddied whirls of excited figures, men and women questioning, threatening, crying out for vengeance. Overhead amid driving clouds, the moon, through successive mantlings of darkness, broke periodically into sudden blazes of light; among the startled people below, raced a witches' dance of the rapidly changing shadows.(14) Lincoln did not regain consciousness. About dawn his pulse began to fail. A little later, "a look of unspeakable peace came over his worn features"(15), and at twenty-two minutes after seven on the morning of the fifteenth of April, he died. THE END BIBLIOGRAPHY It is said that a complete bibliography of Lincoln would include at least five thousand titles. Therefore, any limited bibliography must appear more or less arbitrary. The following is but a minimum list in which, with a few exceptions such as the inescapable interpretative works of Mr. Rhodes and of Professor Dunning, practically everything has to some extent the character of a source. Alexander. A Political History of the State of New York. By De Alva Stanwood Alexander. 3 vols. 1909. Arnold. History of Abraham Lincoln and the Overthrow of Slavery. By Isaac N. Arnold. 1866. Baldwin. Interview between President Lincoln and Colonel John B. Baldwin. 1866. Bancroft. Life of William H. Seward. By Frederick Bancroft. 2 vols. 1900. Barnes. Memoir of Thurlow Weed. By Thurlow Weed Barnes. 1884. Barton. The Soul of Abraham Lincoln. By William Eleazar Barton. 1920. Bigelow. Retrospections of an Active Life. By John Bigelow. 2 vols. 1909.