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Out of my heart will I pluck it, and throw it away, and henceforward

Be but a fighter of battles, a lover and wooer of dangers!" Thus he revolved in his mind his sorry defeat and dis

comfort,

While he was marching by day or lying at night in the

forest,

Looking up at the trees, and the constellations beyond

them.

After a three days' march he came to an Indian en

campment

Pitched on the edge of a meadow, between the sea and the

forest;

Women at work by the tents, and the warriors, horrid with

war-paint,

Seated about a fire, and smoking and talking together; Who, when they saw from afar the sudden approach of the

white men,

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Saw the flash of the sun on breastplate and sabre and

musket,

Straightway leaped to their feet, and two, from among them advancing,

Came to parley with Standish, and offer him furs as a

present;

Friendship was in their looks, but in their hearts there was

hatred.

Braves of the tribe were these, and brothers gigantic in stature,

Huge as Goliath of Gath, or the terrible Og, king of Bashan;

One was Pecksuot named, and the other was called Watta

wamat.

Round their necks were suspended their knives in scabbards of wampum,

Two-edged, trenchant knives, with points as sharp as a needle.

66

Other arms had they none, for they were cunning and crafty. Welcome, English!" they said, these words they had learned from the traders

Touching at times on the coast, to barter and chaffer for

peltries.

Then in their native tongue they began to parley with

Standish,

Through his guide and interpreter, Hobomok, friend of the white man,

Begging for blankets and knives, but mostly for muskets and powder,

Kept by the white man, they said, concealed, with the plague in his cellars,

Ready to be let loose, and destroy his brother the red man! But when Standish refused, and said he would give them the Bible,

Suddenly changing their tone, they began to boast and to bluster...

Then Wattawamat advanced with a stride in front of the other And, with a lofty demeanor, thus vauntingly spake to the Captain:

"Now Wattawamat can see, by the fiery eyes of the Captain, Angry is he in his heart; but the heart of the brave Watta

wamat

Is not afraid at the sight. He was not born of a woman, But on a mountain, at night, from an oak tree riven by

lightning,

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Forth he sprang at a bound, with all his weapons about

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Shouting, "Who is there here to fight with the brave Wattawamat?""

Then he unsheathed his knife, and, whetting the blade on his left hand,

Held it aloft and displayed a woman's face on the handle, Saying, with bitter expression, and look of sinister meaning: "I have another at home, with the face of a man on the handle;

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By and by they shall marry; and there will be plenty of

children!"

Then stood Pecksuot forth, self-vaunting, insulting Miles

Standish:

While with his fingers he patted the knife that hung at his

bosom,

Drawing it half from its sheath, and plunging it back, as he muttered,

"By and by it shall see; it shall eat; ah, ha! but shall speak not!

This is the mighty Captain the white men have sent to destroy us!

He is a little man; let him go and work with the women!"

Meanwhile Standish had noted the faces and figures of

Indians

Peeping and creeping about from bush to tree in the forest,

Feigning to look for game, with arrows set on their bow

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Drawing about him still closer and closer the net of their ambush.

But undaunted he stood, and dissembled and treated them smoothly;

So the old chronicles say, that were writ in the days of the

fathers.

But when he heard their defiance, the boast, the taunt; and the insult,

All the hot blood of his race, of Sir Hugh and of Thurston de Standish,

Boiled and beat in his heart, and swelled in the veins of his temples.

Headlong he leaped on the boaster, and, snatching his knife from its scabbard,

Plunged it into his heart, and, reeling backward, the savage Fell with his face to the sky, and a fiendlike fierceness

upon it.

Straight there arose from the forest the awful sound of the war-whoop,

And, like a flurry of snow on the whistling wind of December,

Swift and sudden and keen came a flight of feathery arrows. Then came a cloud of smoke, and out of the cloud came the

lightning,

Out of the lightning thunder; and death unseen ran before it. Frightened, the savages fled for shelter in swamp and in

thicket,

Hotly pursued and beset; but their sachem, the brave Wattawamat,

Fled not; he was dead. Unswerving and swift had a bullet Passed through his brain, and he fell with both hands clutching the greensward,

Seeming in death to hold back from his foe the land of his fathers.

There on the flowers of the meadow the warriors lay, and above them,

Silent, with folded arms, stood Hobomok, friend of the white man.

Smiling at length he exclaimed to the stalwart Captain of

Plymouth:

“Pecksuot bragged very loud, of his courage, his strength, and his stature,

Mocked the great Captain, and called him a little man; but I see now

Big enough have you been to lay him speechless before you!"

Thus the first battle was fought and won by the stalwart Miles Standish.

When the tidings thereof were brought to the village of Plymouth,

And as trophy of war the head of the brave Wattawamat Scowled from the roof of the fort, which at once was a church and a fortress,

All who beheld it rejoiced, and praised the Lord, and took courage.

Only Priscilla averted her face from this spectre of terror, Thanking God in her heart that she had not married Miles Standish:

Shrinking, fearing almost, lest, coming home from his

battles,

He should lay claim to her hand, as the prize and reward of his valor.

VIII.

THE SPINNING-WHEEL.

MONTH after month passed away, and in Autumn the ships of the merchants

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