Part 11 (1/2)

Amos heard some one cry, and he thought it was Attucks:

”Let us fall upon the guards! The main guard! The main guard!”

He saw, as if in a dream, the mulatto beat down the musket of a soldier with a club; he heard those directly behind him cheering wildly, and he added his voice to theirs.

Somewhere from the rear came the cries:

”Don't be afraid of them!”

”They daren't fire!”

”Kill them! Kill them!”

He half turned his head, believing it was Jim who had raised the last cry, and just at that instant he saw the mulatto aim a blow at Captain Preston's head with the club; he understood that it was parried by the officer's arms, and then noted with satisfaction the fact that as the weapon descended it knocked a musket from the hands of a soldier.

It was to him more like a dream than a reality when he saw the mulatto raise the musket quickly, as if to use it upon the officer, and at that moment some one, Amos never knew who, shouted:

”Why don't you fire? Why don't you fire?”

Instantly, above the shouts and yells of the mult.i.tude, was heard the sharp, ominous crack of a musket, then another and another, until six reports seemed literally to cleave the air, while before him, and on either side of him, Amos saw men fall; saw the crimson blood gus.h.i.+ng from gaping wounds, and then it was as if consciousness deserted him.

[Footnote F: Afterwards Was.h.i.+ngton's Secretary of War.]

CHAPTER VI.

AFTER THE Ma.s.sACRE.

Amos was brought to a consciousness of his surroundings by the wailings of Jim, who, regardless of everything save his own sore affliction, was kneeling by the side of his brother, trying to staunch a sluggish flow of blood, which was issuing from Sam's forehead.

Near him lay James Caldwell and Crispus Attucks, both of whom had been killed instantly, and a short distance away Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr were writhing in the agony of mortal wounds, while here and there within the narrow s.p.a.ce were six others who had been brought to the ground by the leaden hail.

Amos dimly understood that the crowd had fallen back at the discharge of the weapons, but he thought only of his friend's great grief, and tried in vain to a.s.suage it.

Sitting upon the snow-covered ice, Jim held the head of his dead brother, moaning and sobbing, until Amos began to fear he also had been wounded.

”Did any of the bullets. .h.i.t you, Jim?” he asked, solicitously.

”No, no, I only wish they had! _I_ don't amount to anything. Poor Sam!” And, in the frenzy of his grief, Jim swayed to and fro, still holding in tender clasp the lifeless head, while above him, grim and menacing, stood the soldiers with levelled muskets.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

While one might have counted twenty, the square, lately the scene of such an uproar, was silent, save for the moans of the wounded, and then the tramp of the soldiers rang out horribly distinct as Captain Preston marched them away to the main guard.

The people recovered sufficiently from their terror and bewilderment to advance, in order to succour those who were suffering, and hardly had they done so when the sound of drums beating the call to arms was heard, and a few moments later it was whispered from one to another that the Twenty-ninth Regiment was forming in ranks near the Town House.

Then from far up the street came the dreadful cry, shrill and menacing:

”The soldiers are rising! To arms! To arms! Turn out with your guns!”

While the drums continued to beat, this terrible summons resounded through first one street and then another, striking terror to the hearts of those who heard it; but causing the courageous to hasten to the scene of the murder in order to aid their townsmen, and the cowardly to seek refuge in flight.