Mount had taken a pipe from the stranger's rack, and now lighted it, peering out of the window, and puffing away in vast contentment.
Northward, across the water, the lights of Charlestown glimmered through a thin fog. Nearer, in mid-stream, rose the black hull of a British war-ship, battle-lanthorns set and lighted, stabbing the dark tide below with jagged shafts of yellow light, cut by little black waves which hastened seaward on the sombre ebbing tide.
As for Boston, or as much of it as we could see over the shadowy roofs and slanting house-tops, it was deathly dark and still. Fort Pitt, with its hundreds of people, which Boston could match with thousands, was far more stirring and alive than this dumb city of shadows, with never a stir in its empty streets, and never a light from a window-candle. Truly, we sat in a tomb—the sepulchre of all good men's hopes for justice from that distant England we had loved so well in kinder days.
Somewhere, deep in the dim city's heart, a fire was burning, and we could see its faint reflection on chimneys in the northwest.
"Doubtless some regimental fire on the Common," muttered Mount, "or a signal on Mount W—d—m, where the Light Horse camp. They talk to the war-ships and the castle from Beacon Hill, too. It may be that."
Musing there by the window, we scarcely noticed that, little by little, the room behind us was filling. Already at the long table a dozen guests were seated, some conversing, some playing absently with their glasses, some reading the newspapers through round horn-rimmed spectacles.
Many of them glanced sharply at us; some looked at Mount, smiled, and nudged others.
"Do you know any of these gentlemen, Jack?" I asked, in a low voice.
He swung around in his chair and surveyed the table.
"Ay, all o' them," he said, returning their amused salutations; "they all belong to the club that meets here."