The boys looked around and saw Williams, Jones, Lester Brigham and several of that crowd standing close by. The faces of the most of them were very pale, and Lester was trembling visibly. Under ordinary circumstances they would have been ordered away at once; but class etiquette was forgotten now. The young soldiers had something else to think about.
“I didn’t come here to fight,” continued Enoch Williams, “and I won’t do it, either.”
“How are you going to help yourself?” asked Curtis. “Will you skip over to Canada? That’s what some of the Hamilton boys have done.”
“No; but I’ll refuse to do duty, and stay here under arrest,” replied Enoch.
“And be court-martialed for cowardice and disgracefully dismissed the academy when the trouble is over,” said Egan. “Don’t let the people down in Maryland hear of it, Enoch. They’ll cut you, sure.”
“I don’t care if they do,” was the defiant response. “I have no desire to be knocked in the head with a coupling-pin.”
The other boys didn’t want to be treated that way either, but they had no intention of shirking their duty. They didn’t care to talk with Enoch and his friends, and so they turned away and left them alone.
There was little sleeping done in the academy that night, and those who did slumber kept one eye and both ears open, and were ready to jump at the very first note of alarm. It came shortly after midnight. All on a sudden the clear blast of a bugle rang through the silent building, being followed an instant later by the “long roll.” There was a moment’s hush, and then hasty footsteps sounded in the different halls, and heavy blows were showered upon the dormitory doors, mingled with loud cries of, “Fall in! Fall in!”
“The mob has come! Now we’ll know how it seems to engage in a real battle,” were the words with which each boy encouraged his room-mate, as he sprang out of bed and pulled on his clothes. “The rioters at Hamilton number ten thousand men; and if they have all come up here, what can three hundred boys do with them?”
There were some pale faces among the young soldiers who jerked open their doors and ran at the top of their speed towards the armory, but not one of them was seen to falter. Some of them did falter, however, but we shall see that they did not escape detection.