you cowardly red-coats," cried others.

"Rush upon them!" shouted many voices. "Drive the rascals to their
barracks! Down with them! Down with them! Let them fire, if they dare!"

Amid the uproar, the soldiers stood glaring at the people, with the
fierceness of men whose trade was to shed blood.

Oh, what a crisis had now arrived! Up to this very moment, the angry
feelings between England and America might have been pacified. England had
but to stretch out the hand of reconciliation, and acknowledge that she
had hitherto mistaken her rights but would do so no more. Then, the
ancient bonds of brotherhood would again have been knit together, as
firmly as in old times. The habit of loyalty, which had grown as strong as
instinct, was not utterly overcome. The perils shared, the victories won,
in the Old French War, when the soldiers of the colonies fought side by
side with their comrades from beyond the sea, were unforgotten yet.
England was still that beloved country which the colonists called their
home. King George, though he had frowned upon America, was still
reverenced as a father.

But, should the king's soldiers shed one drop of American blood, then it
was a quarrel to the death. Never--never would America rest satisfied,
until she had torn down the royal authority, and trampled it in the dust.

"Fire, if you dare, villains!" hoarsely shouted the people, while the
muzzles of the muskets were turned upon them; "you dare not fire!"

They appeared ready to rush upon the levelled bayonets. Captain Preston
waved his sword, and uttered a command which could not be distinctly
heard, amid the uproar of shouts that issued from a hundred throats. But
his soldiers deemed that he had spoken the fatal mandate--"fire!" The flash
of their muskets lighted up the street, and the report rang loudly between
the edifices. It was said, too, that the figure of a man with a cloth
hanging down over his face, was seen to step into the balcony of the
custom-house, and discharge a musket at the crowd.

A gush of smoke had overspread the scene. It rose heavily, as if it were
loath to reveal the dreadful spectacle beneath it. Eleven of the sons of
New England lay stretched upon the street. Some, sorely wounded, were
struggling to rise again. Others stirred not, nor groaned, for they were
past all pain. Blood was streaming upon the snow; and that purple stain,
in the midst of King Street, though it melted away in the next day's sun,
was n