“To the headless horseman! Hellfire to the Sons of Liberty!”
“I wonder.” Moffat said, as if musing to himself, “does anyone among us stable a black stallion?”
They all started glancing at one another.
“John, don’t you have a black stallion in your stable?” Moffat asked.
“What, me? The headless horseman?” Hewitt said, with a snort. “Not I. It’s true. I have a black horse in my stable, but it is an old mare. A walking country horse. Hardly the sort of mount for clattering about the streets of Boston in the middle of the night!”
“Stoddard has a black horse!” someone cried. “And it’s a stallion, too!”
“No, no, my stallion is a bay!” Stoddard protested.
“Perhaps it was a bay they saw that night!”
“No. it was black, they said, like jet.”
“Gentlemen. gentlemen!’” said Drakov. raising his arms to get their attention. He waited till they’d settled down. “What does it profit us to speculate upon who this man might he?”
“Do you happen to own a black stallion. Mr. Dark?” said someone in the crowd.
“As it happens. I do not own any horses whatsoever,” Drakov said. “And these gentlemen can tell you. I had not yet arrived in Boston when the headless horseman first made his appearance. so I think that we can all safely assume I am not he.”
“Yes, that’s quite true,” said Hewitt. “Nicholas has only just arrived in the colonies. He does not even have a place to call his own yet.”
“Quite so, gentlemen,” said Drakov. “But my point is simply this. Our mysterious horseman may be among us even now, for all we know, or he might be dining at this very moment in some other part of town, altogether unaware of our interest in him. In either event, what difference does it make? He serves all our interests best by being unknown. Remember that if we cannot discern his true identity, then neither can the Sons of Liberty.
“Your point is well taken. Dark.” said Brown. “But then how may we let him know that there are those among us ready and willing to lend him our support?”
“Well, our horseman is clearly a Tory, that much we know,” said Drakov. “And we all know who our fellow Tories are, do we not? I say we spread the word among all of our friends. That way, whoever he may be, the word must surely reach him. Let it be known that there are those among us who stand ready to oppose the lawlessness of Samuel Adams and his mob. And if the horseman wants our help, then surely a man of his resources must find a way to tell us.”
“You think he will respond?” said Hewitt.
“We can only wait and sec.” said Drakov. “But if our headless horseman is the man of action he appears to be. then I think we may be hearing from him soon.”
Benjamin Hallowell was not the sort of man who was easily intimidated and he had very little sympathy for the grievances of Boston’s radicals, especially after the Sons of Liberty attacked his home. He did not care for Boston. He much preferred the civility of London, but the new regulations had required him to personally assume his post as a collector of customs duties in the colonies.
In the past, it had been the practice for men appointed to his office to remain in England and appoint people in the colonies to act in their place, as their deputies, but the ministry had put a stop to that. The colonists were all too often sympathetic to the smugglers and the colonial deputies had often looked the other way, accepting bribes from merchants and their captains to ignore the smuggled goods. Hallowell was an ambitious man and he did not intend to settle down in Massachusetts. He meant to impress his superiors in England with the efficient way that he performed his duties and to use his post in Boston as a step up the ladder to further his career in government service.
For a long time, he had been waiting for the opportunity to make an example of one man in particular, a man who was notorious for his flagrant disregard of the Acts of Trade and Navigation, and now, thanks to the recent arrival in port of the Romney and the Lawrence, it seemed the moment had arrived to teach the haughty John Hancock a lesson that was a long time overdue. Hallowell listened grim-faced as his chief collector, Joseph Harrison, made his report.
“From the moment that I saw the Liberty pull into the wharf,” said Harrison, “I suspected that her holds were loaded full of smuggled goods. She rode low in the water, far too low to account for what was on her manifest.” Harrison snorted. “When I boarded her for my inspection, the captain claimed that the ship’s entire cargo consisted of twenty-live pipes of Madeira. And yet any fool could see the ship was loaded to capacity!”
“So you insisted on making a personal inspection, of course,” said Hallowell.
“Yes, and no sooner had I done so than they offered me a bribe!” said Harrison. He drew himself up stiffly. “I refused, of course.”
“Of course,” said Hallowell. “What happened then?”
“They bullied me,” said Harrison, his tone almost that of a small boy who had been picked on by his elders. “The ship’s crew gathered around and threatened me, tried to make me take the bribe, but when I still refused, they seized me-actually seized me! — and dragged me down below decks, where they locked me up in one of the cabins! I pounded on the door, hut they only laughed at me and said that I should cool my heels for a while and think things over. For three hours or more they left me there, heedless of my protests, until the sun went down! And then I heard the ship being unloaded. And they unloaded than more than twenty-five pipes of wine, I can tell you that, sir! Afterward, when they were done with the unloading, they let me out and made out as if it had all been some mistake! They even had the barefaced effrontery to suggest that I had locked myself inside the cabin! The brass! The very brass of them! And now, even as we speak, they’re loading up the ship again and making ready to leave port, doubtless with more contraband bound for the Indies, and of what use is it to demand to see the contents of their hold? They will do the same thing once again, or worse!”
“No, they most certainly will not.” said Hallowell, grimly. “Hancock has gone too far this time. I will not have my customs collectors bullied about, no, sir! John Hancock might well be the richest man in Boston, but that does not put him above the law!”
“But what can we do?” asked Harrison.
“We can hit him where it hurts him most, Joseph. In his pocketbook. I intend to seize his ship.”
“His crew will never stand for that, sir! They are a rough lot, indeed. I tell you, it would be as much as worth my life to serve seizure papers on them, sir. I have a family to think of…”