CAPTURED
There had been no time to cry out, so quickly had he been overcome,
and now the opportunity was past. A twisted cloth was thrust into
his mouth and tied behind his head ere he could bring his astonished
muscles to obey him. Then, although he heaved and fought, his efforts
were vain. Three snarling, painted faces bent over him, a knife poised
itself above his heart, and in a trice his arms were pinioned securely.
Surprise had given place to wrath, and David panted and mouthed and
kicked, glaring back at his captors madly. He was angry with himself
as well as with them, mortified to think that he should have so easily
fallen into their trap. Tears threatened his eyes and he had difficulty
keeping them back. When they had him secure, leaving, however, his feet
free, they lifted him up, and the one who had greeted him from the
thicket spoke.
“You come, we no hurt. You no come, we kill.” He pressed the point of
his knife gently against David’s throat. If he thought to see the lad
flinch, he was mistaken. David moved no muscle. Only his eyes shot
venom into the face of the savage. The Indian grunted and stepped
back. “Good,” he said. “You come, no make kill.” One of the others had
gone back into the swamp and now returned with a musket, two bows, and
two quivers of gray-tipped arrows. The arrows settled for David the
identity of his captors. They were, he reasoned, Wachoosett Indians,
emissaries of the sachem Woosonametipom. What they meant to do with him
he could not yet fathom. Handing the musket to the English-speaking
Indian, the one who had fetched it turned his attention to the
buckets and the three discussed them for a moment. David made out
only an occasional word, for, while the language they used was
undoubtedly Nipmuck, their guttural speech was different from the clear
articulation and careful phrasing of Monapikot. Finally it was decided
to take one of the buckets and leave the other, and the one who had
proposed it, who seemed the oldest of the three, secured it with a
rawhide thong to his girdle. As the bucket was made of oak with iron
hoops and bail, it was no light burden. But its gratified possessor
seemed not to mind its weight and even looked back regretfully at its
companion left behind.
It was he who led the way. David went next, and at the rear came the
Indian with the musket. For more than a mile they kept to the swamp
land and woods, following first the dried bed of a runnel and later
the foot of a long hill whose wooded summit stood dark against the
yellow of the western sky. No word was spoken and scarcely a twig
was snapped or a branch flicked by the savages. Had David’s plight
been less unhappy, he might have enjoyed seeing with what ease and in
what stealthy silence the leader made his cautious way through the
underbrush. Branches parted and swept together again without a sound,
and even the bucket swinging at his hip never once caught. The pace
was not fast, but it never faltered, and to David, who had not the use
of his arms to aid him, it was more rapid than he would have chosen.
Once, catching a foot in a vine, he fell headlong, with much noise,
unable to save himself, and was jerked rudely to his feet again by
the Indian behind him, who growled at him in Nipmuck words he did not
understand, but whose tenor was clear enough. Twilight settled and the
forest became full of shadows. By this time, however, they had left
the lowlands and were proceeding generally northwestward through open
woods. David’s captors did not appear to be apprehensive of meeting any
one, although it was evident that they wanted to get their prey well
out of that part of the country before pursuit might be started. So far
as the boy knew there lay no settlement for many miles in the direction
they were taking, since the little village at Sudbury lay well to the
west and the Concord settlement more to the east. For that matter, he
reflected hopelessly, they might easily pass within a stone-throw of
either place in the darkness without danger of being seen.
When an hour or more had passed, the woods ended and, in the starlit
darkness, a broad meadow stretched for miles. Here and there lay the
glimmer of water, and David knew that they had come to the edge of
the Sudbury Marshes through which wound the Crooked River. A halt was
called, and David’s gag was removed that he might eat the cracked raw
corn that they fed him. At first his jaws were too stiff to move and
his lips and tongue were numb, but presently he was able to chew the
food and swallow it. No fire was lighted, and, when they had rested
for a half-hour, they went on again. By thrusting his jaw out, David
succeeded in having the gag replaced more loosely, although it still
effectually prevented him from making any outcry. Across the meadow
they went to the river, and there without hesitation they descended
into the water and, since the stream was low, forded without being wet
above their middles. Again they found woodland, and unerringly the
elder of the three entered it and went on at his unfaltering pace.
David kept close at his heels. The short halt had rested him, but
walking with the hands tied behind one is difficult, and soon he began
to lag. That was the signal for an ungentle prod from the Indian behind
him and David increased his pace again. All sorts of plans for escape
came to him only to be dismissed as impractical. Had he had the use
of his hands, he might have attempted stepping aside and trusting to
elude his captors in the blackness of the forest, but to try that under
the conditions was useless. He would have blundered into trees and
doubtless fallen before he had gone a dozen steps.
From the evenness of the path they trod he judged that they were on
one of the main Indian trails leading from the coast inland. These were
well-trod paths over which one might easily ride on horseback, as the
settlers had discovered. But they were far from level as often leading
over a hill as around it, and the boy’s body was presently sore and
his lungs hot and dry. He thought they must have covered a good twelve
miles, and was convinced that he could go but a little way farther.
The proddings at his back came frequently now, and he was bidden “quog
quosh!” or “more fast!” But even threats failed at last and David
stumbled and sank to the ground and closed his eyes deliciously. Again
they raised him, the one in command striking him harshly with the butt
of his musket. David felt the blow, but was dead to the pain of it and
toppled again to earth the instant they released him.
“You no sleep! You make hurry more fast. No can lie down. You walk-walk
or me kill!”
“Matta,” muttered David. “Naut seam.” (“No, very tired.”)
“You want kill?” demanded the Indian angrily. “You want be dead, stay
here all-time?”
David heard, but was too sleepy to answer. Something sharp pierced his
doublet, under a shoulder, and he groaned. Again he was pulled to his
feet and again they refused to bear him. After that he was only dimly
aware of what went on, for his eyes would not stay open and sleep was
ever just behind them. He heard his captors talking, although their
voices seemed to come from a great distance. Then the voices dwindled
and silence fell. David slept.
An hour later they waked him and pulled him to his feet. Still dazed
with sleep, he remonstrated fretfully, and would not stand until again
that sharp sting of a knife-point made him wince and come back to
reality.
The Indian who spoke English was talking to him. “You plenty sleep,
David man. You walk-walk. You no walk-walk we stick um knife very good!”
“Aye, I’ll walk. I’m rested now. What name you?”
“Sequanawah,” replied the Indian after a moment’s hesitation.
“You Wachoosett man?”
“You no talk. You make hurry,” was the gruff answer. “Quog quosh.”
On they went through the dark forest, now and then climbing across
some bare hill-top where the starlight showed David the form of the
Indian ahead and from where he could vaguely sense the wooded valleys
below them. The cooler air of early morning blew in their faces at
such times, bringing a shiver even as it refreshed. For some reason,
probably because there was no longer any necessity, they had not
replaced the gag in the boy’s mouth, and he was able to breathe freely
and even to talk, although talking was quickly discouraged. Just before
dawn another halt was made and the Indians again produced corn from
their pouches and gave David a handful of it to munch. Only once had he
had water, and now he was thirsty again and said so.
Sequanawah grunted. “You come,” he said.
David followed to where, some forty yards away from their resting-place,
the Indian stooped in the half-darkness and scraped at the leaves under
a giant birch. Then he leaned his head down to the basin he had formed
and David heard him drink. When the boy had also had his fill of the
cool but brackish water, he followed the Indian back, and on the way he
asked wonderingly:
“How you know water there, Sequanawah?”
“Me smell um,” was the grave reply.
As David couldn’t see the Indian’s face, he was unable to say whether
the latter was in earnest or not, and the matter ever remained a
mystery to him. Sitting again, Sequanawah emptied a tiny bit of powder
onto a flat stone, laid a few wisps of birch bark above it, and set
fire with the flint of his musket. Then a half-dozen twigs were placed
on the little blaze and the Indians carefully filled their pipes with
tobacco and lighted them. After that there was no word uttered until
the weed was smoked.
Then Sequanawah grunted: “Hub!” and the others arose.
“How much more walk?” asked David.
Sequanawah looked around at the clustering trees and up at the sky that
now showed gray above them. “Pausochu,” he answered. (“A little way.”)
What was to happen to him when the journey was ended, David did not
know, but he was weary through and through and almost any fate seemed
preferable to further toiling up and down hills. He no longer doubted
that his destination was the village of the Wachoosett Indians near
the Lone Hill, which, he had gathered from Monapikot, was a very tall
mountain standing quite by itself far from any English settlement.
Whether Woosonametipom meant to kill him or put him to torture or
merely hold him prisoner, time alone could reveal.
After another hour’s progress, they emerged from the forest in a meadow
that lay about a fair-sized pond. The dawn was close at hand and
near-by objects were plainly discernible. Sequanawah pointed a naked
arm, and David, following with his gaze, made out dimly in the grayness
a great hill that loomed before them less than a mile distant.
“Great Sachem Woosonametipom him live,” said the Indian. “Quog quosh!”
So forward they went, skirting the pond wherein the frogs were already
talking to each other in deep voices, and came presently to more woods.
The ground began to rise and somewhere ahead a dog barked. Others
answered. They were on a well-trodden trail that wound upward through
oaks and maples and tall, slim pines. Suddenly a clearing was before
them, a wide plateau near the foot of the mountain. Many wigwams
showed their tops above a rude palisade of logs and the smoke of early
fires filled the air. The barking of dogs made a great din, and, as
David’s captors paused at the edge of the woods, a door in the fort
opened and several Indians, men and women, came through, and with them
a dozen snarling, barking mongrels, and Sequanawah called something
above the clamor and they went forward again toward the doorway.