n guard! To the main guard!"

The multitude caught up the cry, and as if in a twinkling the throng
was in motion, each pressing forward by the nearest way toward the
barracks.

The streets were choked with people, and as the vast throng spread
itself out toward the nearest approach to the quarters of the guard,
they were, by force of circumstances, divided into three divisions.

[Illustration]

Samuel Gray and his two companions were carried, without effort on
their part, with one of these bodies, and, by a singular chance,
pressed into close companionship with the barber's apprentice and his
comrades.

The direction taken by this last division led them directly past the
Custom House, and as they approached it Amos heard the shrill voice of
Hardy, high above the cries and shouts of his companions:

"There's the scoundrel who knocked me down! That sentinel in the
doorway blackened my eye because I dared ask to see Lieutenant Draper!"

The attention of the throng was thus directed to the single soldier
who stood on duty at the Custom House.

"Knock him down as well! Give him a dose of his own medicine!"

"Death to the 'bloody backs'!"

"Kill him! Kill him!"

Now the excited ones no longer thought of the main guard. They saw
before them an armed enemy, and he it was who had abused one of the
town-born.

Some continued to utter threats; but many flung bits of ice, frozen
dirt, and even such harmless missiles as snowballs, while not a few
pressed toward the soldier, as if to make him prisoner.

The man looked down upon his assailants defiantly, and, as if to show
more clearly what punishment it was possible for him to inflict upon
them, began deliberately to load his musket.

This action intensified the anger of the younger people, and they
pressed yet closer.

"Advance one step further, and I kill the man nearest!" the sentinel
cried.

"If you fire you must die for it!" Henry Knox[F] shouted from among
the throng.

"I shall shoot if they come nearer!"

As he said this the soldier levelled his weapon, evidently determined
to execute the threat, and at the same time he shouted lustily for the
main guard.

"That's right! Bring on your main guard! But we'll kill you first,"
Attucks cried, fiercely, as he made a dash forward, forcing his way
through the press, owing to his great strength.

Before he could reach the sentinel, Captain Preston, the officer of
the day, with a guard of eight men, came on t