inhabitants?" asked Theodore Bliss. "They can not, without my orders,"
replied Preston; while "the town-born" called out, "Come on, you rascals,
you bloody backs, you lobster scoundrels, fire, if you dare. We know you
dare not."

11. Just then, Montgomery received a blow from a stick which had hit his
Musket; and the word "fire!" being given by Preston, he stepped a little
to one side, and shot Attucks, who at the time was quietly leaning on a
long stick. "Don't fire!" said Langford, the watchman, to Kilroi, looking
him full in the face; but yet he did so, and Samuel Gray, who was standing
next Langford, fell lifeless. The rest fired slowly and in succession on
the people, who were dispersing. Three persons were killed, among them
Attucks, the mulatto; eight were wounded, two of them mortally. Of all the
eleven, not more than one had any share in the disturbance.

12. So infuriated were the soldiers that, when the men returned to take up
the dead, they prepared to fire again, but were checked by Preston, while
the Twenty-ninth Regiment appeared under arms in King Street. "This is our
time," cried the soldiers of the Fourteenth; and dogs were never seen more
greedy for their prey.

13. The bells rung in all the churches; the town drums beat. "To arms! to
arms!" was the cry. "Our hearts," said Warren, "beat to arms, almost
resolved by one stroke to avenge the death of our slaughtered brethren;"
but they stood self-possessed, demanding justice according to the law.
"Did you not know that you should not have fired without the order of a
civil magistrate?" asked Hutchinson, on meeting Preston. "I did it,"
answered Preston, "to save my men."

14. The people would not be pacified or retire till the regiment was