Meanwhile Standish had noted the faces and figures of Indians Peeping and creeping about from bush to tree in the forest, Fell with his face to the sky, and a fiendlike fierceness upon it. 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. Hotly pursued and beset; but their sachem, the brave Wattawamat, MILES STANDISH 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 a 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, He should lay claim to her hand, as the prize and reward of his valor. |