"It seems to be goin' so now. There comes the smoke from the tavern, an' men are stationed to prevent the people from savin' anything. How about it, lads? If we had spent our last cent hirin' a room there, the smoke would be forcin' us out by this time, an' we'd soon find ourselves prisoners in the hands of such as stand ready to burn a city where are mostly women an' children!"
"It's not certain but that we'll be forced out as it is!" I exclaimed. "When the tavern barns get afire this smoke-house stands a good chance of burning."
"It may be, lad; but the wind draws in on the other side, an' I'm allowin' that this shanty, small as it is, won't come to harm, though if it does go, we'll try to keep our upper lips stiff so the villainous red-coats shan't have a chance to crow over us very much."
We saw the men comprising the escort now break ranks, each going, apparently, where he pleased, and Darius cried in anger:
"It is to be a reg'lar sack of the city, such as we're told they had in the old times, when men were reckoned as bein' little better than brutes! Work like this will count big for the Britishers before the other nations of the world! There goes a crowd of soldiers into the little shop beyond the tavern; they're plunderin' it in piratical style! See 'em throw the goods out into the street! The red-coats from the encampment, scentin' booty, are comin' up by the hundreds!"
From where we were perched it was possible to see three shops, and by the time the tavern was well afire no less than five hundred men had robbed these, tramping into the dirt such goods as they did not want to carry away, and then the buildings were set on fire.
Verily it was a barbarous sack of the city!
Then it was, when the flames from the buildings of which I have spoken were mounting high in the sky, that I observed the commander order up a full company of soldiers. It was possible to see, for although night had come the fire lighted up surrounding objects as at noonday, that he gave them orders at great length, after which they started off toward the Capitol at full speed.
"They're goin' to burn the government buildin's!" Darius cried for my father's benefit. "A hundred or more have been detailed to do the work, an' the commanders are watchin' proceedin's like that chap, I forget his name, who played on the fiddle while Rome was burnin'. An' all this is bein' done by the high an' lofty Britishers, who count on settin' the pace for the whole world!"
Jim Freeman and Dody Wardwell, who could not find perches near the window that they might look out, now opened the door regardless of consequences, and stood gazing at as cruel a scene as can well be imagined.