Thursday noon was set for the funeral of the man who had given his life
that a city might live. In the room where he had made his brave fight
against death he now lay in state. On Wednesday ten thousand people
visited him there. Early Thursday morning his remains were transferred
to the Unitarian Church where, early as it was, a great multitude had
gathered to do him honour. Now through the long morning hours it sat
with him silently. The church was soon filled to over-flowing; the
streets in all directions became crowded with sober-faced men and
women. They knew they would be unable to get into the church, to attend
nearer his last communion with his fellowmen, but they stayed, feeling
vaguely that their mere presence helped--as, indeed, perhaps it did.
Marching bodies from every guild or society in the city stood in rank
after rank, extending down the street as far as the eye could reach.
Hundreds of horsemen, carriages, foot marchers, quietly, orderly, were
already getting into line. They, too, were excluded from the funeral
ceremonies by lack of room; they, too, waited to do honour to the
cortege. This procession was over two miles in length. Each man wore a
band of crèpe around his left arm. The time set for the funeral
ceremony was yet hours distant.
It seemed that all the city must be there. But those who, hurrying to
the scene, had occasion to pass near the Vigilante headquarters found
the vacant square guarded on all sides by a triple line of armed men.
The side streets, also, were filled with them. They stood in exact
alignment, rigid, bayonets fixed, their eyes straight ahead. Three
thousand of them were there. Hour after hour they stood, untiring,
staring at the building, which gave no sign; just as the other
multitude, only a few squares away, stood hour after hour, patiently
waiting in the bright sun.
At quarter before one the upper windows of the headquarters building
were thrown open, and small platforms, extending about three feet, were
thrust from two of them. An instant later two heavy beams were shoved
out from the flat roof directly over the platforms. From the ends of
the beams dangled nooses of rope. A dead wait ensued. Across the
silence could be heard faintly from the open windows of the distant
church the chords of an organ, the rise and fall of a hymn, then the
measured cadence of oration. The funeral services had begun.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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