Without the slightest noise the mob of lynchers approached the door to the warehouse. Not a false step was made, not a dead leaf was trod upon and not even the creaking of a shoe or the clearing of a throat broke the stillness. With a noise that shook the buildings and threw every man to his feet the big fireproof door was suddenly struck as if with the force of a battering ram. The guards sprang to their guns and the Negroes screamed for mercy. But there were rifles, shotguns and pistols everywhere. The little anteroom was packed full of armed men in an instant. The men seemed to come up through the floor and through the walls, so rapidly did they fill the room. And still others poured in at the door, and when the room was filled so that not another man could enter, the door was slammed to with awful noise and force. The Negroes were screaming at the top of their voices. “Hands up and don’t move; if you move a foot or turn your hands I will blow your damned brains out,” came the stern and rigid command from a man of small, thick stature, his face wholly concealed by a mask of white cloth and holding in his hands a couple of dangerous horse pistols. The guards threw their hands up above their heads, all except one guard, James Hendricks, who lifted only one hand, while the other firmly grasped his revolver. “I’ll blow hell out of you in a minute if you don’t put that hand up,” came the warning, and the hand followed the other one. The command was then given to move, and move quick. “You guards, move, and move quick, if you don’t want to get your brains blown out,” cried the low man, who was the mob’s leader. The guards were then placed in line, six of them, and marched around the room and then marched to the front of the room, near the door through which the mob had entered. They were placed in line against the front wall of the building and ordered not to move at the cost of their lives. They did not speak, neither did they move, and not a word was said by the guard to the mob. The men then walked around where they could get a good look at the trembling, pleading, terror-stricken Negroes, begging for life and declaring that they were innocent. There was a moment’s pause of deliberation. The Negroes thought it meant that the assassins hesitated in their bloody deed, but the men hesitated only because they wanted deliberate action and a clear range for their bullets. The Negroes, helpless, tied together with ropes, begged for mercy, for they saw the cold gun barrels, the angry and determined faces of the men, and they knew it meant death--instant death to them. “Oh, God, have mercy!” cried one of the men in his agony. “Oh, give me a minute to live.”