“Officers to your posts!” cried the general in a ringing voice.
Then there was excitement enough for anyone. To the two boys it seemed as if the whole audience rose and started for the doors at the same instant. Women were screaming and several had already fainted. Chairs and benches were being overturned—one chair overturned with Sergeant-Major Bluster in it. Scabbards were clashing and men were shouting hoarse commands.
“Let’s get out of here!” whispered Jud.
“All right; but wait till the rest have gone; we’d be killed in that mob.”
“What a glorious ending to the ‘Blockade of Boston’!” Jud exulted. “Couldn’t be better, could it?”
In the excitement some of the lights round the stage were blown out, and then the place was so dark that you could hardly distinguish faces.
And in the street it was still darker. The boys were among the last to leave the hall, and as they stepped outside they could hear the rattle of small arms and the sound of cheering away to the north.
“It’s an attack on the town,” whispered Jud excitedly. “That’s just what it is—a big attack!”
But, positive as Jud was, he was wrong, as both boys found out later. General Putnam had sent a party of perhaps two hundred Continentals under the command of Major Knowlton to destroy fourteen houses along Mill Street in Charlestown and to capture the British guards who were stationed in them. Through a mistake some of the houses were fired too soon, and the flames gave the alarm to the enemy on Bunker Hill. But the daring attempt was by no means unsuccessful. Major Knowlton succeeded in burning eight of the houses and in capturing five prisoners. Washington himself was well pleased with the venture.
But the thing that pleased Don and Jud most was the untimely ending of the night’s entertainment. No one thought of returning to the hall.