IN KING PHILIP’S POWER
The eastern sky paled beyond the green-clad hills. A bird high on the
topmost branch of a great oak tree chirped experimentally and then
burst into a trilling welcome to the new day. A flush of rose crept
above the horizon and cast its fairy radiance through the cloistered
forest. To the weary boy who leaned against the smooth, cool bole of
a beech tree the coming of dawn was grateful, indeed. All through the
night he had traversed the woods, resting at times for short periods,
silently, cautiously, guiding his steps by the stars. Progress had been
woefully slow, and now that day was approaching he had scant knowledge
of the distance he had traveled. He had heard an Indian say that the
English town of Brookfield was a “little journey” to the south of
the Wachoosett encampment. A “little journey” meant usually from ten
to a dozen English miles, although the Indians were grandly vague in
such matters. It seemed to David as he paused to rest that he must
surely have traveled that distance, and now he searched the forest for
indications of cleared country. Near at hand a half-dry little stream
wandered between ledges and fern banks, and David sought it and drank
deeply and laved face and hands in the cool water. Then, refreshed, he
turned his steps away from the dawn and set out to find the settlement.
Presently a well-defined path lay before him, proceeding in the
general direction of the course he had chosen. The path was wide and
hard-trodden and tempted him sorely. By taking it he could make much
better progress, but there was always the possibility of an unwelcome
meeting on the trail. Still, not once since he had slipped away from
the Wachoosett village had he so much as heard a footstep, and it
seemed quite probable to him that he was now close to Brookfield and
that enemy savages would not be found so near to the settlement. So,
after a moment’s deliberation, he stepped forth into the path and went
on quickly, though keeping a sharp watch the while. The trail turned
and wound frequently and he kept close at one side or the other that
he might step back from sight if needs be. A dog barked afar off and
was answered. The light increased steadily, and suddenly and like a
miracle the forest became filled with the golden radiance of the sun.
Only the upper reaches of the trees were illumined as yet and down
below the blue shadows still lingered, but the sight brought joy and
new courage to the traveler. And then, silently skirting a bend in the
path, his heart stood still for an instant ere it began a wild tattoo
against his ribs. Not ten paces before him stood two savages, short,
stocky men in full war paraphernalia, painted and feathered. Retreat
would have been futile, for they had seen him as soon as he had seen
them. Remained only to put a good face on the encounter and win by. A
second look showed David that, whatever the Indians were, they were
not Wachoosetts. Nor did it seem that they were natives of the country
thereabouts. Their tomahawks were long-hilted and heavy of head and
their girdles hung lower in front. And yet they might be Quaboags, in
which case he had nothing to fear, since so far the Quaboags still
professed friendship for the English.
His pause had been but momentary, and now he went forward, one hand
outspread in the Nipmuck salutation. “Netop!” he called. The strangers
made no answer for a moment, but looked him up and down with sidelong
glances. Then one replied in a language the boy did not know. But the
words were plainly a question, and David, resolving to pass himself off
for what he seemed, a Wachoosett, answered in the Nipmuck tongue.
“I am a Wachoosett,” he said. “Woosonametipom is my sachem. We lodge
three leagues northward. We come on a friendly visit to this country.
Who are you, brothers?”
The Indians seemed to understand something of what he said. Doubtless
the words Wachoosett and Woosonametipom were familiar: perhaps others,
since many words were similar in the different tongues. One of the
two, a cruel-visaged savage with much tattooing on his body, grunted
doubtfully, but the other embarked on a long speech, none of which
David could fathom. But he listened gravely and respectfully, paused at
one side of the path, until the man had ended. Then he replied with all
the compliments and friendly phrases he could muster in Nipmuck; and
wished all the time that he had at least a knife or spear. It was the
cruel-faced one who solved the difficulty of intercourse by lapsing
into what passed for English with him.
“No talk um talk. Where um go?”
“I go Brookfield. Which way um, brother?”
“What for um go Brookfield?”
“I take message to English from my sachem.”
“Where um message?” The savage held out a hand imperiously.
David shook his head and pointed to his forehead. “In here,” he
replied. Then he pointed down the path. “Brookfield this way?” he asked.
The other bowed, but shot a suspicious and scowling look from under his
brows. David took a long breath and stepped forward.
“Farewell, brothers.”
Mutters were their only response. David swung on, a prickly sensation
along his spine. That he had fooled them into thinking him a Wachoosett
Indian scarcely seemed possible. Indeed, the uglier of the two had
plainly been incredulous from the first. But, after a dozen paces, he
began to hope, and he was congratulating himself when there was a
swift _whiz-zt_ beside him and an arrow embedded itself in a sapling a
few yards ahead of him. He turned swiftly and plunged into the wood. As
he dropped to cover, he was conscious of a stinging pain in his left
shoulder, and looking he beheld an arrow thrust into the soft part of
his upper arm. Fortunately, it had no more than buried its head, and
he wrenched it loose and, sinking behind a tree, held it clutched in
his right hand as he peered cautiously forth. It was not much of a
weapon, to be sure, but it gave him some comfort to feel even so poor a
defense in his grasp. The Indians were coming toward his hiding-place
at a slow trot, with many pauses. One had fitted another arrow to his
bow, but the second held only his tomahawk as he advanced. Flight, as
hopeless as it seemed, was David’s only course, and in an instant he
was up and away, dashing from tree to tree. An arrow flew past him;
footsteps sounded above the thumping of his heart. A good runner,
David’s night-long journey had left him with little strength for the
present task, and after a minute he saw that capture was certain, for
already the swifter of the two pursuers was close behind him and he
knew without looking that the stone tomahawk was raised in air. With
his back to a big tree he stopped and faced them and gestured surrender.
[Illustration: THERE WAS A SWIFT _whiz-zt_ BESIDE HIM AND AN ARROW
EMBEDDED ITSELF IN A SAPLING]
They, too, stopped while still a few paces away, drawing apart that
he might not slip past. The ugly one grinned wickedly and swung his
tomahawk with ferocious menace.
“Why um Englishman run?” he asked.
“Why did you shoot at me?” demanded David sternly.
The other savage replied. “Um say um Wachoosett. What for tell um lie,
brother?”
“I am Englishman, aye, but I come from Woosonametipom’s lodge. I am
friend of Wachoosett, friend of Indians. I not know if you be my
friend. So I say I’m Wachoosett. You see I no have weapon.”
“You come along me,” growled the cruel-faced Indian. “No run away. Me
kill.”
“Where I go?” asked David.
“You no ask um question. You come along grand.”
The savage pointed back along the trail with his big tomahawk. After
an instant’s indecision, David went. They put him ahead and followed
close behind him. In such manner the three traversed a hundred rods
of the trail. Then a hand on the boy’s arm swung him to the right
and he discerned a faintly visible path, scarcely more than a deer
runway, that led toward the east. For a good half-hour he traveled, now
turning right and now left, and at last the woods thinned and a rocky
hillside meadow came into sight. Along the border of this they passed
and crossed a muddy stream, and, with the morning sunlight full in
their faces, mounted a bushy ridge and went down the other side of it
and into a tract of marshy ground grown head-high with yellowing rushes
and interspersed with alder and white birch. A dog barked suddenly from
close at hand, so unexpectedly that David, picking his steps across the
swamp, started and went floundering to his knees in the slimy water.
In another instant the rushes were gone, trampled flat by many feet,
and a little island sprang from the marsh, and David saw many Indians
and some rude huts of branches and bark before him. A mangy dog rushed
at his legs and ran off howling as one of the boy’s captors struck him
with his bow. The sunlit air was filled with the smoke of fires, voices
growled, and David was thrust into the midst of a group of painted
savages.
More curious than unfriendly they seemed, but that was due to the
fact that for a moment they failed to penetrate his disguise. It was
not until his captors spoke, explaining and pointing, that the Indians
began to murmur and growl and even laugh derisively. One seized David’s
scalp-lock and gave it a mighty tug as if expecting it to come off like
a wig, and David, resenting the pain, thoughtlessly struck his arm
away. The Indian, a tall, bone-faced brave, uttered a cry and thrust
forward with the spear held in his other hand. But David saw in time
and leaped back, crowding against the throng behind him, and one of his
captors interposed and the crowd laughed a little. At this moment David
was aware of one who was pushing his way toward him with no gentle use
of his elbows, a large and heavily built Indian who wore a coat that
was covered entirely with wampum of many hues arranged not unpleasingly
in strange designs. Authority became him well, for, although there was
something sinister in the cold glitter of his eyes, his features were
not unpleasing and held a certain nobility, and David, observing all
fell back in deference, and seeing that wampum coat whose fame was
widespread, knew that he was face to face with the arch-enemy, King
Philip, sachem of the Wampanoags.
Pushing aside one of David’s captors, who had interposed between the
boy and the Indian with the spear, King Philip looked for a moment at
the prisoner with straight and piercing gaze. Then, in a pleasant voice
and with friendly mien, he asked: “You English?”
“Aye.”
“What is your name?”
“David Lindall.”
“Where you dwell, David?”
“Near the long rapids of the Charles River, westward of Nonantum.”
“You know Great Teacher Eliot, maybe, by place called Natick?”
“Aye, his village of the Praying Indians is but two leagues from my
father’s house.”
“He is fine man,” said Pometacom gravely. “Come to my lodge, David, and
make talk.”
The wigwam of the sachem was a small and poorly built affair of bark
over poles. There were a few pieces of rush matting on the floor and a
few cooking-utensils beside the still warm ashes of the fire. David saw
that there were neither women nor children about, while he estimated
the number of Pometacom’s warriors at near sixty, a number much smaller
than he would have surmised. With the chief went a young and strikingly
intelligent appearing Indian, named Caleb, who was even more gaudily
bedecked than the sachem himself, save for the latter’s famous wampum
coat. All seated themselves, and then, having lighted his pipe with
much care and deliberation, King Philip, still speaking in a gentle
fashion, questioned David closely. The latter, determining to tell a
truthful story, told of his adventures from the time of his capture by
Sequanawah, and the sachem heard him silently, nodding now and then,
puffing occasional volumes of choking smoke from his stone pipe. The
second Indian listened as closely, but there was an expression on his
face that David did not like. When he had ended his narrative, the
sachem, to David’s intense surprise, asked abruptly:
“You know Captain Hutchinson?”
“Hutchinson? Nay, I know him not, King Philip.”
“You come from Brookfield?”
“Nay, I was seeking Brookfield when your warriors fell upon me, as I
have told.”
“You tell lies!” The sachem’s voice deepened to an angry growl. “You
English spy. You make show you Wachoosett. You put red juice on your
body and feather in your hair. You say you go with message from
Woosonametipom Sachem to English at Brookfield village. You tell so to
my warriors when they find you in forest. You not make fool of Philip!
You tell me truth, David!”
“I have told you the truth, King Philip. If you doubt me, you need
but send a messenger to Woosonametipom. He will tell you that I speak
truth.”
The sachem wagged his head from side to side and motioned fretfully
with the hand that held his pipe. “I not believe. You spy. Maybe I kill
you, maybe I not. You answer me truth what I ask; we see. How many
fighting men this Captain Hutchinson have?”
“I do not know.”
The sachem rewarded him with a sidelong, drooping glance that sent a
chill down the boy’s spine and spoke with the younger Indian in native
language. Then for several minutes King Philip spat questions at David,
seeking, it appeared, to learn what forces of the English were in that
vicinity, and likewise the identity of certain Indians who, it seemed,
were serving with the English as guides. But to not one question could
David make intelligent answer, and the sachem grew each moment more
incensed, until, in the end, he tossed his pipe on the ground and
sprang to his feet.
“You not talk now, you English dog, but soon you talk grand! Much heat
make tongue wag! Plenty fire you get, plenty talk you make! You see!”
The younger Indian pulled David to his feet and thrust him before him
through the doorway. Outside he called others and they came gathering
about with cruel, snarling grins. He who had haled him forth spoke
for a minute, evidently directing, and then hands were again laid on
the boy and he was pushed and dragged over the ground toward where,
at an edge of the swamp island, a lone cedar tree stood. Until they
approached it, David believed the sachem’s threat to be but idle, born
of exasperation and anger, but now he knew that it was to be carried
out. Fear and desperation lent him strength. Wrenching himself free
from the grasps of those who held him, he shot a clenched fist into
the face of one before him, eluded a second, and dashed for freedom.
But the attempt was hopeless from the first. Before him lay morass and
stagnant pools, and even had he reached the swamp, he would have been
soon recaptured. As it was, he was overtaken before he had gained it
and found himself writhing, striking, even kicking with moccasined
feet, in the grasp of many angry foes. And so, although he struck some
lusty blows, he was speedily subdued, and lay, panting and glaring, on
the ground while thongs were passed about his wrists and ankles and
drawn cruelly tight. Then he was borne to the tree and held on his
feet while, with his back against the twisted trunk, other ropes and
thongs made him fast to it. His wrists were unbound and his arms drawn
back around the tree and then secured again, which brought him into an
attitude of much pain. When the last knot was tied, the Indians drew
back and inspected him with grunts of satisfaction and smiles of cruel
pleasure, and one whose bleeding lips proclaimed him as the recipient
of David’s blow stepped forward and struck him brutally in the face.
The boy, seeing the savage’s intention, jerked his head aside and the
blow landed on the side of his chin. But even so, it dazed him for a
moment, and in that moment another delivered a resounding slap with
open palm against David’s face. The boy’s head dropped to his shoulder
and his eyes closed, and, seeing him so, the Indians, muttering and
spitting upon him, went their ways.