Touching each of us in turn that we might be warned to follow closely, Darius led the way to the easterly end of the building, where he halted at the foot of a flight of stairs.
Now he marshaled his force according to the weapons. Jerry was behind him; I came next, determined to use my musket as a club so long as it could be done, rather than take the risk of killing a man, and in the rear of me was Josiah Coburn, one of Jim Freeman's party.
Now it must be understood that we could see nothing; the darkness was so intense that one could almost feel it, and yet we proposed to blunder in upon enemies who would probably shoot without warning in the direction of the slightest suspicious noise.
It was not a cheerful adventure, and I hold myself well excused for being frightened, so that I followed the leader's orders implicitly to the best of my ability.
Just at this point, when we were trembling with suppressed excitement, and, as in my case, fear, Darius remembered that he had not unlocked the outer door in order that Jim might hide within the building, and we were forced to stand at the foot of the stairs while he groped his way back to remedy the neglect.
It seemed to me that we remained there hardly daring to breathe, a full half-hour, although I suppose now that it was no more than five minutes, and then our leader was returned.
Pushing his way to the head of the line once more, we began the ascent of the stairs, each fellow stepping cautiously; but despite all our efforts each board sent forth loud protesting creaks as we bore our weight upon it, and the only wonder was that the Britishers did not awaken sooner.
The noise we made in ascending the stairs seemed to me loud enough to alarm the inmates of the house near at hand, and, therefore, I was neither startled nor surprised when some person at one end of the second floor, cried out:
"Who is there? What's the row?"
"Can't you give your shipmates the same show for a watch below that you've got?" Darius asked with a regular deep-sea note in his voice, and this it was that gave us a slight advantage, since the men did not open fire.