Don jerked his arm free and ran ahead; soon he was lost to Tom in the crowd. At Long Lane he caught a glimpse of bobbing head-dresses. He started to run as best he could. Once he stumbled and fell to his knees, but somebody helped him quickly to his feet. “No time to stumble now,” said the stranger, whoever he was.
A few moments later those at the head of the throng turned sharply to the right, and as they stumbled over the cobblestones down a narrow street Don observed that the moon was shining. In and out among the streets the throng went, past Cow Lane, past Belcher’s Lane and straight toward Griffin’s Wharf. Everyone was excited, and yet there was a certain order about the whole movement.
“Remember what Rowe said in meeting?” remarked a florid-faced man whom Don recognized as a grocer from King Street. “‘Who knows how tea will mingle with salt water?’ Well, I guess we’ll all know pretty quick.”
Don felt his heart take a sudden leap. So they were going to throw the tea overboard! These were no Indians; they were Colonists, all of them! He thought he even recognized one of the leaders as the tall, rugged-faced man in the crowd who had advised his companions to wait and see what would happen if the governor refused the clearance.
Once on the wharf, the first thing the men did was to post guards, and then Don noticed that all of the little copper-colored band had pistols as well as hatchets and axes. The Dartmouth was the first ship to be boarded; someone demanded that the hatches be opened, and the sailors complied with the demand at once; there was no resistance. In a moment square chests with strange markings were being lifted to the deck. Again Don observed that everything was being done in an orderly manner.
It was a night that he should long remember. The tide was low, and the three Indiamen with their high sides and ornamented sterns reminded him of huge dragons lying beside the wharf in the moonlight. He saw chest after chest broken open with axes and hatchets and then tumbled overboard into the water; he heard the low voices of the men as they worked—they seemed to be talking in Indian dialect, though he knew that it was not genuine, for now and again he would catch a word or two of English.
For a while Don leaned against one of the great warehouses and tried to guess who the “Indians” were; at one time he counted as many as fifteen of them, but he could not be sure that there were not more; for at least a hundred persons were on the wharf, helping to get rid of the tea. Some of the chests that they tossed overboard lodged on the mud flats that were out of water, but young men and boys waded in and broke them into pieces and pushed them off. It was fascinating to watch the destruction.
Don remained near the warehouse for perhaps three hours; and not until the last chest had been tossed from the Eleanor and the Beaver, the other two tea vessels, did he realize that he was hungry; he had entirely forgotten that he had missed his supper.
Taking one last glance at the pieces of broken chests, which the turning tide was now carrying out into the harbor, he set forth toward home. At the head of Atkinson Street he heard someone call his name, and, turning, he saw Tom Bullard close behind him. “Oh, Don, wait a minute.”
Don paused. “I can’t wait very long,” he said and grinned. “My Aunt Martha won’t be very well pleased with me as it is.”