Near him lay James Caldwell and Crispus Attucks, both of whom had been killed instantly, and a short distance away Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr were writhing in the agony of mortal wounds, while here and there within the narrow space were six others who had been brought to the ground by the leaden hail.
Amos dimly understood that the crowd had fallen back at the discharge of the weapons, but he thought only of his friend's great grief, and tried in vain to assuage it.
Sitting upon the snow-covered ice, Jim held the head of his dead brother, moaning and sobbing, until Amos began to fear he also had been wounded.
"Did any of the bullets hit you, Jim?" he asked, solicitously.
"No, no, I only wish they had! I don't amount to anything. Poor Sam!" And, in the frenzy of his grief, Jim swayed to and fro, still holding in tender clasp the lifeless head, while above him, grim and menacing, stood the soldiers with levelled muskets.
While one might have counted twenty, the square, lately the scene of such an uproar, was silent, save for the moans of the wounded, and then the tramp of the soldiers rang out horribly distinct as Captain Preston marched them away to the main guard.
The people recovered sufficiently from their terror and bewilderment to advance, in order to succour those who were suffering, and hardly had they done so when the sound of drums beating the call to arms was heard, and a few moments later it was whispered from one to another that the Twenty-ninth Regiment was forming in ranks near the Town House.
Then from far up the street came the dreadful cry, shrill and menacing: