All at once, as I say, a great part of the multitude vanished. All at
once, on the verandas, and in the wide office swept with yet cooler
currents from the sweet-breathed sea, I was sensible of a sudden
decimation. I cannot fix the date with precision, but one night at
about half-past eight the great moony electrics which swung in space
high over the floors of the office, the ball-room, and the dining-room
paled their effectual fires, which they never afterward relumed, and
left us to the batlike waverings of the naphtha gas. I remember the
sinking of the heart with which my senses took cognizance of the fact.
No one spoke, or audibly noted it; the talking groups talked on in
fallen tones; the people who were reading books or papers drew them
a little nearer, or put them a little farther; those who were writing
letters at the long tables in the reading-room silently adjusted their
vision to the obscurity. It was like the effect of some august natural
catastrophe; the general disposition was to ignore the fact, as we
shall perhaps try to ignore the fact that the world has begun to burn
up when it begins to burn, and pretend that it is merely a fire over in
Hoboken or Long Island City that the department will soon have under
control.
It may have been the morning of that day, or the morning of the next,
but it was at least some neighboring morning, that I sauntered down to
one of the forenoon trains and saw a large detachment of our colored
troops departing. They were very gay, as they nearly always are, poor
fellows; and they were exchanging humorous and derisive adieux with
a detachment of those who were to remain, and who pretended on their
part to mock their departing comrades. These helped them off with their
baggage, wheeling the heavy truck-loads of the trunks which the porters
left to them; and, when all was ready, shaking hands again and again,
and telling them to be good to themselves. At the last moment a very
short, stout, little black man appeared with a truck heaped high with
baggage, and rushed it down the long esplanade to the platform beside
the train, amid the wild cheers and wagers of the going and staying
spectators. He had all the cry till the train actually started, when a
young colored brother burst out of the front door of a car from which
it had detached itself, and began to run it down with a heavy grip-sack
flying wildly about and beating his legs and flanks. He had taken his
place in this car unaware of its fate, and had remained in it, exulting
from the open window in his sole possession; and now the secret of
his proprietorship had been revealed to his dismay. But it was a very
kindly train; when his pursuit became known, the locomotive obligingly
slowed to a stand, and he was pulled aboard the rear platform amidst a
jubilation which few real advantages inspire in this world.