Here and there they noticed a policeman, paunchy, helmeted, swinging night sticks but doing little to disperse the rapidly growing crowds. It was with a deep sigh of relief that Jean reached the drug store. They had to wait nearly an hour while the prescriptions were being filled. Leaving the store, they found the embers had burst into flame. A huge man, shirt-sleeved and collarless, his eyes bloodshot and venomous, was perched high on a box haranguing the crowd, which swayed and eddied and shouted approval of the speaker’s remarks.
Fascinated, Jean and Mimi stood in the doorway and watched the spectacle. “Five Points,” the intersection of five heavily travelled streets, was rapidly becoming filled with a milling, motley throng. Other speakers ascended hastily improvised rostrums, the tail end of a delivery wagon, a fire hydrant, the projecting ledge of a show-window. The movement of the crowd became swifter, the blood lust was roused, the killer was eager for the victim. …
A Negro was seen walking down Marietta Street, one of the five thoroughfares focusing in Five Points, unaware apparently of the scene he was approaching. Mimi saw him and wanted to shout a warning to him. It would have been fruitless—the roar was too great and her voice would have been as the falling of a single drop of water on the shore while nearby boomed the surf. It would have been almost suicidal—the pack might easily have turned on them. Nevertheless she wanted to cry out to this unknown man to flee. It was too late. One man in the crowd spied him just as Mimi saw him, just as she uttered a little scream of terror. Up went the roar, “There’s a nigger now!”
Too late the Negro saw his danger. He turned to flee but before he had gone many yards the pack was upon him. Mimi saw him strike out, dodge, attempt to elude his attackers. It was useless. Down he went and a great bellow of hatred, of passion, of sadistic exultation filled his ears as he died. Mimi covered her eyes with her hands and pressed close to Jean as she saw the flashing jackknives.