Jacob Dean heard the words as he was passing through the living room, and he ran swiftly back to where Master Lamb stood, crying nervously:
"Who is coming? Who is coming?"
"I know not," Anthony Lamb replied; "but it must be a friend whom God has raised up, for I believed of a verity there were none remaining in the city who would dare to lift a voice in our behalf."
"The soldiers! The soldiers!" the merchants heard several of those on the outside cry as if in alarm, and St. John Newcomb answered them by saying confidently:
"Hold your hands for a moment, and let them come. My lord Howe will permit no interference with our sport, when it is known whom we have here at bay."
Then the voice which had brought the Tories to a stand-still in their cruel work, asked sharply, and sounding now nearer at hand:
"What is the meaning of this? Who has given you permission to break into the houses of honest citizens? Who is the leader of this mob?"
"I, St. John Newcomb, may it please you; but I object to the term 'mob,' for we be honest Tories, who are smoking out the most arrant Whig in this colony—one who has ill-treated us time and time again when Washington's army of beggars held possession of the city."
