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Standish of Standish, a novel by Jane Goodwin Austin |
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Chapter 33. Pecksuot's Knife |
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_ CHAPTER XXXIII. PECKSUOT'S KNIFE The next morning as the village sat at breakfast, two men at half an hour's interval passed hastily down the forest trail, and entering the town sought the governor's house. The first was Wassapinewat, brother of Obtakiest, chief of the Neponsets, who, having suffered both wounds and terror in Corbitant's attempted rebellion, now hastened to turn State's evidence, and while warning the white men of his brother's intended attack wash his hands of any share in it. The other visitor was a long lank Caucasian, Phineas Pratt by name, carpenter by trade, Weymouth settler by position. This man half dead with suffering of various sorts, footsore and weary, came stumbling down the King's Highway just as Bradford came out of his own door followed by Wassapinewat, at sight of whom Phineas started and trembled, then pointing a finger at him shrieked,-- "Have a care, Governor! 'T is one of the bloody salvages sworn to take all our lives!" "Nay, friend Pratt, for I remember thee well, 't is a penitent robber now, come to warn us of danger. Methinks thine errand may be the same. Come in, and after due refreshment tell us the truth of this matter." But weary as he was, the excited fugitive would pause for neither rest nor refreshment until he had poured out his story of the wrongs, the insults, the threats with which the Neponsets had harassed the Weymouth men in their weakness, in part revenging the foul wrongs they while strong had put upon the savages, until in an Indian council of the day before, it had been formally resolved to wait only for two days' more work upon the boats which Phineas and another were finishing, and then to inaugurate the massacre. Both Pratt and Wassapinewat had by different channels learned the result of this council, and each had resolved to not only save himself from the explosion of this mine, but to warn the Plymouth colonists of their danger, and each had set out by a slightly different route from the other and made the journey in ignorance of the other's movements. It was afterward discovered, however, that Pratt's flight was at once discovered, and an Indian dispatched to overtake and kill him, a catastrophe averted by the carpenter's straying from the path in the darkness, so that his pursuer reached Plymouth, and went on to Manomet before the village was astir. These two confirmatory reports were very welcome to Bradford, upon whom the nominal responsibility of the expedition rested, and to the elder whose reverend face was very pale and grave in these days. Standish, however, as he had felt no doubts, now felt no added impulse, but went quietly on, seeing his command and his stores embarked, and examining personally the arms of his eight soldiers. At last all was ready, the men seated each at his post, Hobomok in the bow, and Standish at the stern, the men and boys who stayed behind grouped upon the shore, while a vague cloud of skirts and kirtles hovered upon the brow of Cole's Hill, when Elder Brewster, baring his white head, stepped upon the Rock, and raising his hands to heaven prayed loud and fervently that the God of battles, the God of victory, the God of their fathers, would bless, protect, and prosper those who went forth in His name to do battle for His Right; and as the old man's voice rose clear and sonorous in its impassioned appeal, the first breath of a favoring wind came out of the South, and the lapping waves of the incoming tide answered melodiously to the deep diapason of the Amen sent up from fifty bearded throats. "And now we may go home and make our mourning weeds," said Priscilla with a petulant half-sob, half-laugh, as she and Mary Chilton turned away from the wheatfield on the hill. "Nay, John Alden will come home safe, I'm sure on 't," said Mary gently, but her vivacious friend turned sharply upon her. "And if he comes not at all, I'd liefer know him dead in honor, than lingering here among the women like some others." "Gilbert Winslow, or his brother John if you mean him, would have gone as gladly as any man had the captain chosen him," replied Mary composedly, if coldly, and Priscilla turned and clipped her in a sharp embrace, crying out that indeed her friend were no more than right to beat her for a froward child. The prosperous wind lasted all the way, and before noon the shallop lay at anchor close beside the Swan, a small craft owned by the Weymouth men, and intended for their use in trading and fishing. Standish's first visit was to her, and much to his surprise he found her both undefended and deserted. Landing with four of his men he next proceeded to the plantation, as it was called, where some ten or twelve substantial buildings surrounded with a stockade established a very defensible position, but here again neglect and suicidal folly stared him in the face. The settlers were dispersed in every direction: three had that very morning gone to live among the Indians; many were roaming the woods and shore in search of food; one poor fellow going to dig clams on the previous day had stuck fast in the mud by reason of weakness, and though the Indians stood upon the shore watching him with shouts of derisive laughter, not one put out a hand to help him, and he perished miserably at the flow of the tide. The master of the Swan, stricken with the folly of strong drink, met all Standish's expostulations with a fatuous laugh, and the declaration that there was no danger,--no danger whatever; that he and the Indians were such friends that he carried no arms, and never closed the gates of the stockade; that all the stories reaching Plymouth were lies or blunders; and that although they were short of provisions, and especially of strong waters, they asked nothing more of the Plymouth people than some fresh supplies to last until Sanders, the head of the colony, should return from Monhegan on the coast of Maine, whither he had gone for corn. Leaving the drunken captain in disgust, Standish at once took the command of the post upon himself, and dispatched Hobomok and two of the settlers who came to place themselves under his orders, to bring in all of the others whom they could reach, sending word that he would feed them. Many of them, including Sanders' lieutenant named Manning, came at the summons, and before night all who would were safe within the stockade, and were served each man with a pint of shelled corn, all that could be spared, for it was taken from the Pilgrims' stock of seed-corn. Then in a brief and vigorous address Standish told the colonists why he had come, and repeated to them the assurance given him by Hobomok that the day but one after his arrival was the day fixed upon for the massacre, the boats needing but the one day's work to complete them. Furthermore, he assured them that he needed nor would accept any help from them in his punishment of the savages, the danger and the responsibility being no more than Plymouth could endure, and, as he significantly added, "The savages were not like to flee before men who had so often fled before them." Hardly was the harangue ended when a Neponset bringing a few hastily collected furs entered the stockade, and warily approaching the captain offered them for sale. Standish controlling all appearance of indignation parleyed with him and paid a fair price for the furs, but as the Indian turned toward one of the houses, he called him back, and dismissed him somewhat peremptorily. "To spy out the land hath he come," remarked he to Alden. "And I will not have him glean our purpose." But the savage had already learned something, and went back to his comrades to report that The-Sword-of-the-White-Men "spoke smoothly, but his eyes showed that there was anger in his heart." The second morning so soon as the gates were opened several Indians entered together. One of them named Pecksuot, a pniese of great celebrity, greeted Hobomok jeeringly, and told him that he supposed his master had come to kill all the Neponsets including himself, and added,-- "Tell him to begin if he dare; we are not afraid of him, nor shall we run away and hide. Let him begin unless he is afraid. Is he afraid?" Hobomok repeated the message word for word, but Standish only replied,-- "Tell the pniese I would speak with his sachem, Obtakiest." "Obtakiest is busy, or he is feasting, or he is sleeping," replied Pecksuot disdainfully. "He does not trouble himself to run about after any little fellow who sends for him." Again Hobomok translated the insult, but added in a low voice,-- "Obtakiest is waiting for some of his braves who are gone to the Shawmuts for help. When they return he will attack the white men." "So! Then we will not wait for them, but so soon as we can gather the heads in one place we will return some of their courtly challenges." And Standish ground his strong teeth together in the pain of self-restraint under insult. Perceiving that he did not mean to act, some of the Indians who had lingered a little behind at first, now came forward, hopping and dancing around Standish, whetting their knives upon their palms, making insulting gestures, and shouting all sorts of jeers and taunts at him and the white men generally. Then Wituwamat came forward and in his own tongue cried out,-- "The Captain Sword-of-the-White-Men escaped the knife I carried to Canacum for him, but he will not escape this." And he showed a dagger hung around his neck by a deer's sinew, on whose wooden handle a woman's face was not inartistically carved. "This is Wituwamat's squaw-knife," declared he. "At home he has another with a man's face upon it which has already killed both French and English; by and by they will marry, and there shall be a knife ready for every white man's heart; they can see, they can eat, and they make no childish noise like the white man's weapons. But the squaw knife is enough for the white pniese." "Hm! Methinks I cannot much longer keep Gideon in his scabbard--he will fly out of his own accord," muttered Standish, a deadly pallor showing beneath the bronze of his skin. Pecksuot saw it, and mistook it for the hue of fear. With a savage smile he approached and stood close beside the Captain, towering above his head, for he was a giant in stature and strength. "The Sword-of-the-White-Men may be a great pniese, but he is a very little man," said he contemptuously. "Now I am a pniese as well as he, and I am besides a very big man, and a very brave warrior. The Sword had better run away before I devour him." Without reply Standish turned and walked into the principal house of the village, and looked around the large lower room. "It will do as well as another place," said he briefly. "Alden and Howland remove me this great table to the side of the room, and pitch out this settle and the stools. Now John Alden get you gone and send me Hopkins and Billington. Tarry you with Cooke and Browne at the gate; bid Soule and Eaton stand on guard, and if they hear me cry Rescue! make in to my help. Let no more of the salvages into the stockade until we have settled with these. Hobomok, tell Pecksuot, Kamuso, whom I saw behind the rest, Wituwamat, and that notorious ruffian his brother, that I fain would speak with them in this place." "Four to four," remarked Billington with grewsome relish. "Ay. Take you Wituwamat; Hopkins, I leave you to deal with Kamuso; Howland, take the young fellow, and I will deal with Pecksuot, for in truth he is a bigger man than I, but we will see if he is a better." What story Hobomok may have invented to bring the four ringleaders into the house we know not, but as five white men remained outside with at least an equal number of Indians, they could not fear being overmatched, and presently came stalking impudently in, exchanging jeers and laughter of the most irritating nature. Hobomok followed, and closing the door stood with his back against it, calmly observing the scene, but taking no part in it. Then at last the captain loosed the reins of the fiery spirit struggling and chafing beneath the curb so long, and fixing his eyes red with the blaze of anger upon Pecksuot, he cried,-- "On guard, O Pecksuot!" and sprang upon him, seizing the squaw-knife, which was sharpened at the back as well as at the front, and ground at the tip to a needle point. With a coarse laugh Pecksuot snatched at the captain's throat with his left hand, while his right closed like iron over the captain's grasp of the hilt and tried to turn it against him. But the rebound from his forced inaction had strung the soldier's muscles like steel and thrilled along his nerves like fire. A roar like that of a lion broke from his panting chest, and with one mighty effort he wrung the knife from the grasp of the giant, and turning its point drove it deep into the heart of the boaster. A wild cry of death and defeat rung through the room as he fell headlong, and Wituwamat turning his head to look, gave Billington his chance and received his own mortal wound; while Kamuso fighting with the silent courage of a great warrior only succumbed at last beneath a dozen wounds from Hopkins's short sword, and Howland having disarmed and wounded his opponent presented him as prisoner under Standish's orders. "Should'st have slain him in the heat of the onset, Howland," panted the captain, wiping his hands and looking around him. "Now--take him out, Billington, and hang him to the tree in the middle of the parade. We shall leave him there as an example for the others. Open the door, Hobomok." Hobomok did as he was bid, but then advancing with slow step to the side of the fallen Pecksuot he placed a foot upon his chest and softly said,-- "Yes, my brother, thou wast a very big man, but I have seen a little man bring thee low." It was the giant's funeral elegy. "I have notched my sword on yon villain's skull," exclaimed Hopkins wiping and examining his blade, and the Captain smiling shrewdly said,-- "I risked not Gideon in such ignoble warfare, though he clattered in his scabbord. Savage weapons for savage hearts, say I." "Ha! There's fighting without!" cried Hopkins, rushing to the door, where in effect Soule and Browne had shot down two stout savages, who hearing Pecksuot's death cry had tried to avenge him; while another rushing upon Alden with uplifted knife was caught in mid career by a bullet from the captain's snaphance snatched up at Hopkins's warning. So fell seven of the savages, who would if they could have barbarously murdered seventy white men, women, and children, and thus did the Captain of the Pilgrim forces teach the red men a lesson that lasted in vivid force until the men of that generation had given way to those of poor weak Sachem Philip's day. That night one of the three colonists who had gone to live among the Indians returned to the village bringing news that in the evening a runner had arrived at the place where he was, and had delivered a "short and sad" message to his hosts, probably the news of Pecksuot's and Wituwamat's death. The Indians had begun at once to collect and arm, and he foreboding evil had slunk away after vainly trying to persuade his comrades to do the same. "They will be slain out of revenge," declared Hobomok in his own tongue, and the event proved him a true prophet. In the early gray of morning the watch reported a file of Indians emerging from the forest, and Standish with four of his own men, and two settlers who implored permission to join him, went to meet them. A bushy hillock lay midway between the two parties, and the Indians were making for its shelter, when the Pilgrims breaking into a double run forestalled them, and reached the summit where, as Standish declared, he was ready to welcome the whole Neponset tribe. The Indians at once fell behind each man his tree, and a flight of arrows aimed chiefly at Standish and Hobomok ensued. "Let no man shoot until he hath a fair mark," ordered the Captain. "'T is useless to waste ammunition upon tree-trunks." "Both their pnieses are dead, and Obtakiest himself is none!" suddenly declared Hobomok. "I alone can drive them!" and throwing off his coat, leaving his chest with its gleaming "totem" bare, he extended wide his arms and rushed down the hill shouting at the top of his voice,-- "Hobomok the pniese! Hobomok the devil! Hobomok is awake! Hobomok has come!" "The fool will be shot! Hath he gone mad!" shouted Billington, but Hopkins grasped his arm. "Let be, let be! He knows what he is about. Himself told me that his name Hobomok answereth to our word Devil, and that while every pniese through fasting and self-torture gains much power over demons and is greatly feared by all who are not pnieses, he having taken the foul fiend's name, had gained double the power of the rest, and could when put to it summon Sathanas and all his brood to aid him. Those others know it, and--lo, you now, see them scatter, see them fly!" and with a loud laugh he pointed to the savage crew, who panic stricken were fleeing before the pniese like a flock of frightened sheep. "Have after them! Follow me, men!" shouted Standish rushing down the hill, the others following as fast as they could, but not fast enough, for before they came within shot, the party was halted by Hobomok's return, who half glorious, half laughing, reported the enemy hidden in a swamp, whither he led his friends. "We will slay no more if we can help it," declared the captain. "Alden, show a flag of truce. Haply they will understand it." But although as Standish drew near the thicket, Alden carrying the white flag beside him, the savages refrained from firing, his invitation to parley was received with a volley of abuse and defiance renewed at every attempt of his to speak. "Obtakiest is there. I know his voice," declared Hobomok who had crept up behind. "He will not show himself lest I curse him." "Obtakiest! Sachem! Art thou there?" demanded Standish. "Come forth then like a man, and we two will fight it out here in the midst. I challenge thee, sachem!" A hoarse laugh and a volley of obscene abuse was the reply, and Standish indignantly cried,-- "Dost not know how base and cowardly it is to hide there and tongue it like an angry woman! Thou 'rt not fit to be called a man!" A shower of arrows was the only response to this, and presently the movement of the bushes showed that the Indians were retreating to a deeper fastness, and Standish deeply disgusted marched his own men back to the village, the only casualty on either side being the broken arm of the powah or priest, who with Wituwamat and Pecksuot were really the heart of the conspiracy; for Obtakiest after a while sent a squaw to Plymouth abjectly begging for peace, and declaring that he had since Standish's visit changed his camp every night for fear of receiving another one. "And now, Master Manning, and you, master of the Swan and friend of the Neponsets," demanded Standish, as he arrayed the Weymouth men before him, and declared his success in their quarrel, "what shall I do more for your comfort or safety before my return to Plymouth? For myself, I should never fear to remain in this plantation had I the half of your men, but for yourselves ye must judge. Only I will add that I am charged by Governor Bradford to say that any who will come to settle in Plymouth and abide by its laws and governance shall be kindly welcomed." The settlers debated the matter among themselves for a while, and although a few and those of the best, decided to accept the invitation to Plymouth albeit somewhat coldly given, the majority decided to desert the post where they had suffered so much, and to join some other of Weston's men at Monhegan. The Pilgrims cheerfully lent their help, and before night the settlers had loaded all their portable property into the Swan, Standish had seen the gates of the stockade securely bolted and barred, and Hobomok with some red paint had traced upon each a hideous emblem, which he assured the white men would frighten away any predatory Indian. Standish only laughed, but Hopkins nodded sagely. "The rogue is right--I know the symbol, and have seen the terror it carries," said he; and true it is that whether from superstitious or from martial terrors, that stockade and the houses it enclosed, and the body of the savage left swinging from the tree in their midst, were never molested or apparently visited by the red men again. As the heavy laden Swan weltered out of the harbor, victualed with all that remained of Standish's seed corn except a scanty ration apiece to his own men, the pinnace bore gallantly up for Plymouth, and in due course joyfully arrived there bringing home all her crew victorious and unscathed. With them came Wituwamat's head to be set on a pike over the gateway of the Fort, for these our Fathers were not of our day or thought in such matters; and these Englishmen did but follow the usage of England, when so lately as 1747 the heads of the unhappy Pretender's more unhappy followers defiled the air of London's busiest street. Standish for one never doubted of the justice of his course either in the slaying of the colony's avowed enemies, or the exposure of the ringleader's head; not even when a year or so later Bradford sorrowfully placed in his hands a letter just received from his revered Pastor Robinson at Leyden, who in commenting on the death of the Indians said,-- "Oh how happy a thing it had been had you converted some before you had killed any. Let me be bold to exhort you seriously to consider of the disposition of your captain, whom I love;--but there is cause to fear that by occasion, especially of provocation, there may be wanting in him that tenderness of the life of man made after God's image, that is meet." Standish read the letter, and returning it without a word went out from his friend's presence, nor did he ever after allude to it, but a blow had been struck upon that loyal loving heart from which it never in this life recovered. Thirty years later as the hero set his house in order, his failing hand wrote these words,-- "I give 3L. to Mercy Robinson whom I tenderly love for her grandfather's sake." And that was his revenge. _ |
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