"Four days previously a proclamation had been issued threatening all persons in arms against their sovereign with death under martial law, by the cord as rebels and traitors. That menace these men were the first to defy; and he, Prescott, was resolved 'never to be taken alive.'
"Langdon, the president of Harvard College, prayed fervently with them. Then as it began to grow dark on that summer night, they marched silently and without noise across the narrow isthmus, taking with them their wagons with intrenching tools; and Prescott, calling around him his officers and Richard Gridley, an experienced engineer, consulted with them as to the spot on which they should erect their earthworks.
"Bunker Hill had been proposed by the committee, but Prescott had received orders to march to Breed's Hill, and obeyed them. It was nearer Boston, and he and his companions thought it better suited than the other for annoying the British in the town and the shipping in the harbour.
"So the engineer drew there, by the light of the stars, the lines of a redoubt nearly eight rods square. The bells of Boston had struck twelve before they began their work by turning the first sod, but every man of the thousand plied the pickaxe and spade in turn, and so rapidly that the parapet soon assumed form and height sufficient for defence, and Prescott said to himself, 'We shall keep our ground if some screen, however slight, can be completed before discovery.'
"He set a watch to patrol the shore, and twice went down to the margin of the water, on which three British vessels lay at anchor,—the 'Lively' in the ferry between Boston and Charlestown, and a little to the eastward of her the 'Falcon,' sloop-of-war, and the 'Somerset,' a ship-of-the-line,—and listening intently he could hear the drowsy cry of the sentinels on their decks, 'All is well.'"
Captain Raymond paused and looked at his watch.
"It is time we were going," he said. "I will just point out to you all the localities made interesting by the events of that day, and finish my story on board the 'Dolphin,' to which we are just about to return. We may be in the way of other visitors here, but there will be quite to ourselves, and an annoyance to no one."
They went back to their hotel, where the Captain left them for a little, saying he had some purchases to make for use on the voyage, but would return shortly to see them on board the yacht.
He was not gone very long, and on his return the entire party—with the exception of Donald Keith who had bidden them farewell early that morning—returned with him to the "Dolphin," which presently sailed out of the harbour and pursued her way up along the New England coast.