Lucas shook his head.
“The horseman is among us,” said the figure at the pulpit and an excited ripple ran through the crowd. “He is pleased to see so many loyal subjects of the king gathered here together. Long live His Majesty. King George!”
“Long live His Majesty. King George!” the congregation responded.
“We live in perilous times, my brothers,” said the man at the pulpit. “We have seen the Sons of Violence attack our fellow loyal citizens of Boston. We have seen them burn and pillage. We have seen them loot and plunder. We have seen them stone our houses and smash out our windows while our families huddled terrified within and we ourselves shook with rage and indignation, helpless in the face of their superior numbers. We have been forced to stand by and watch while they tarred and feathered our officials and belabored them with clubs. And then we have all read how they justify their actions in their lying newspapers, accusing us of treason, accusing us of disloyalty, accusing us of being the oppressors!” An angry undertone ran through the crowd.
“They want the freedom to speak out, but only for those who would agree with them! They want the freedom to assemble, but only so that they can fire up the common mob and break into our homes and make off with our possessions! They demand freedom of the press, but only so that they can fill their newspapers with their seditious lies! They demand freedom from taxation, but only so that they can continue smuggling with impunity! We, who import our fabrics and our wines from England, our carriages, our furniture, our tea and other necessaries, must pay our legal duties to the Crown as loyal subjects, yet they, a bunch of upstart common laborer, and rabble, feel that they must be exempt! They cry out that Parliament oppresses all Americans, yet who among us has not felt oppressed by them? Ours are the families who have founded these thirteen English colonies. Ours are the families who have built the cities, who have fought the Indians and the French, who have built the ships and founded trade and established our colonial assemblies! Ours was the toil, ours the sweat and blood! And now these dock porters and simple cordwainers, these rope makers and illiterate apprentices descended from indentured servants would bite the hand that feeds them and dictate terms to us! Well, we shall suffer these indignities no longer! We say to them, no more!”
“No more! No more!”
“It’s like a revival meeting,” whispered Delaney. “There is one among us who has set us all an excellent example,” said the speaker. “One who has spoken to the Sons of Violence in the only language that they can understand. Until now, the rabble has been unopposed, free to strike at night and to terrorize anyone they pleased. My friends, that time has ended! The choice is ours, my brothers! We can unite and end this reign of terror, or we can huddle, quaking in our homes, waiting fearfully and helplessly to see whom the Sons of Violence will choose for their next victim.” He suddenly pointed at one of the robed figures below him. “Will it be you?”
The man shifted uncomfortably. The finger moved on.
“Or will it be you? Or you? Or you?” He pointed at another man. “Will yours be the next home that they tear down’?” He pointed again. “Will you be the next one to be seized and dragged into the Common, stripped naked for all to see, and basted with a coat of steaming tar and feathers’?”
He pulled his hand back and clenched it into a fist. “And can we believe that the outlaws will stop there’?” he said. “With no one to oppose them, will they not grow bolder still? In the middle of the night, they will come and visit you,” he said, pointing suddenly at another member of the congregation, and in their frenzy of destruction, while they hold you helpless, they will look upon your daughter and they will find her pleasing. Two of them will hold her while she struggles, yet a third will tear her nightdress from her innocent young body; they will run their filthy, rough, and callused common hands over her sweet virgin flesh; they will bear her down and have their way with her while she weeps and screams in terror and you are forced to watch! And afterward, when you walk the streets together, which one of the carters who pass by you will smirk with secret knowledge? Which one of the drunken dock workers will call out her name after you pass?”
He looked around at the entire congregation.
“It could happen to any one of you,” he said, “And it will happen, unless we stop it now!”
The sense of outrage and indignation surged throughout the crowd.
“These common criminals must be taught a lesson!” he shouted. Who will be the next to learn?”
“ Ebenezer Macintosh!” a deep and resonant voice coed out.
“Drakov!” said Delaney, looking all around, as did many of the others, but there was no way to tell where the voice had come from. The speaker waited until the undertone died down.
“Our friend has chosen well,” he said. “The horseman has named Ebenezer Macintosh. A drunken cobbler. A common brawler, the leader of the South End Gang. It was he who led the mob against the home of our good friend “Thomas Hutchinson, thereby reducing our proudest citizen to penury. And was he punished for this crime? No sooner was he thrown into jail by our sheriff than he was released as a result of threats from the very rioters he led! And today, he swaggers through the streets and boasts of his invulnerability! Is he invulnerable’?”
No!” the crowd yelled.
“Is he beyond the law?”
“ No!”
“Is he going to pay for what he’s done?”
“Yes!” voices called out. “Yes, hang him, make him pay! Hang him!”
“The jury has reached its verdict,” said the speaker. “The accused, Ebenezer Macintosh, stands guilty, as charged. So say you all?”
“ Aye! Aye!”
“Then, Ebenezer Macintosh, for your crimes against the loyal citizens of Boston, we hereby sentence you to hang!”
“Jesus, now what do we do?” Delaney said.
“We’ll have to stop them,” Lucas said. “We’ll have to get to him before they do and warn him.”
“In ancient times,” the speaker continued, “warriors united in a common. sacred cause would gather on the eve of a great battle to celebrate their courage and to fortify their manhood. Thus do we revive this ancient custom. Thus do we celebrate our unity and fortify our cause! “Hellfire to the Sons of Liberty, my brothers!”
“ Hellfire to the Sons of Liberty!”
The organist began to play as the speaker descended from the pulpit and the white-robed women came filing out with trays of wine, ale, rum, and food. The women moved along the tables, setting down their trays and being pulled into the laps of the robed men. At the table next to theirs, a man pulled the cord holding a woman’s robe fastened around her waist and it fell open, revealing her to be completely naked underneath. He started fondling and kissing her. None of the men undressed. They merely pulled open their robes and loosened their clothing underneath, pul