第83章 THE END OF THE ROAD(8)

"To fight it out to the very end.To the last drop of blood and the last cent.There can be no going back.If I surrendered my post to any successor, though he were an archangel from heaven, who would weaken on that great purpose, I should deserve to be execrated as the betrayer of my country."Into Stanton's sour face there came a sudden gleam which made it almost beautiful.

"Mr.President," he said, "I have often differed from you.I have used great freedom in criticism of your acts, and I take leave to think that Ihave been generally in the right.You know that I am no flatterer.But Itell you, sir, from my inmost heart that you are the only man to lead the people, because you are the only man whose courage never fails.God knows how you manage it.I am of the bull-dog type and hold on because I do not know how to let go.Most of my work I do in utter hopelessness.But you, sir, you never come within a mile of despair.The blacker the clouds get the more confident you are that there is sunlight behind them.I carp and cavil at you, but I also take off my hat to you, for you are by far the greatest of us."Lincoln's face broke into a slow smile, which made the eyes seem curiously child-like.

"I thank you, my old friend," he said."I don't admit I have your courage, for I haven't half of it.But if a man feels that he is only a pipe for Omnipotence to sound through, he is not so apt to worry.Besides, these last weeks God has been very good to me and I've been given a kind of assurance.I know the country will grumble a bit about my ways of doing things, but will follow me in the end.I know that we shall win a clean victory.Jordan has been a hard road to travel, but I feel that in spite of all our frailties we'll be dumped on the right side of that stream.After that...""After that," said Stanton, with something like enthusiasm in his voice, "you'll be the first President of a truly united America, with a power and prestige the greatest since Washington."Lincoln's gaze had left the other's face and was fixed on the blue dusk now gathering in the window.

"I don't know about that," he said."When the war's over, I think I'll go home."

IV

Two years passed and once again it was spring in Washington--about half-past ten of the evening of the 14th of April--Good Friday--the first Eastertide of peace.The streets had been illuminated for victory, and the gas jets were still blazing, while a young moon, climbing the sky, was dimming their murky yellow with its cold pure light.Tenth Street was packed from end to end by a silent mob.As a sponge cleans a slate, so exhilaration had been wiped off their souls.On the porch of Ford's Theatre some gaudy posters advertised Tom Taylor's comedy, Our American Cousin, and the steps were littered with paper and orange peel and torn fragments of women's clothes, for the exit of the audience had been hasty.Lights still blazed in the building, for there was nobody to put them out.In front on the side-walk was a cordon of soldiers.

Stanton elbowed his way through the throng to the little house, Mr.

Peterson's, across the street.The messenger from the War Department had poured wild news into his ear,--wholesale murder, everybody--the President--Seward--Grant.Incredulous he had hurried forth and the sight of that huge still crowd woke fear in him.The guards at Mr.Peterson's door recognised him and he was admitted.As he crossed the threshold he saw ominous dark stains.

A kitchen candle burned below the hat-rack in the narrow hall, and showed further stains on the oilcloth.From a room on the left hand came the sound of women weeping.

The door at the end of the passage was ajar.It opened on a bare little place, once perhaps the surgery of some doctor in small practice, but now a bedroom.A door gave at the farther side on a tiny verandah, and this and the one window were wide open.An oil lamp stood on a table by the bed and revealed a crowd of people.A man lay on the camp-bed, lying aslant for he was too long for it.A sheet covered his lower limbs, but his breast and shoulders had been bared.The head was nearest to the entrance, propped on an outjutting bolster.

A man was leaving whom Stanton recognised as Dr.Stone, the Lincoln family physician.The doctor answered his unspoken question."Dying," he said.

"Through the brain.The bullet is now below the left eye.He may live for a few hours--scarcely the night."Stanton moved to the foot of the bed like one in a dream.He saw that Barnes, the Surgeon-General, sat on a deal chair on the left side, holding the dying man's hand.Dr.Gurley, the minister, sat beside the bed.He noted Sumner and Welles and General Halleck and Governor Dennison, and back in the gloom the young Robert Lincoln.But he observed them only as he would have observed figures in a picture.They were but shadows; the living man was he who was struggling on the bed with death.

Lincoln's great arms and chest were naked, and Stanton, who had thought of him as meagre and shrunken, was amazed at their sinewy strength.He remembered that he had once heard of him as a village Hercules.The President was unconscious, but some tortured nerve made him moan like an animal in pain.It was a strange sound to hear from one who had been wont to suffer with tight lips.To Stanton it heightened the spectral unreality of the scene.He seemed to be looking at a death in a stage tragedy.

The trivial voice of Welles broke the silence.He had to give voice to the emotion which choked him.

"His dream has come true," he said--"the dream he told us about at the Cabinet this morning.His ship is nearing the dark shore.He thought it signified good news from Sherman."Stanton did not reply.To save his life he could not have uttered a word.

Then Gurley, the minister, spoke, very gently, for he was a simple man sorely moved.