"I alone am to blame," he muttered, "for mine was the folly.

What has a rough old soldier, grown grim and gray in the harness,

Used to the camp and its ways, to do with the wooing of maidens?

'T was but a dream, - let it pass, - let it vanish like so many others!

What I thought was a flower is only a weed,

and is worthless;

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 de

feat and discomfort,

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 encampment

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

Women at work by the tents, and warriors,

horrid with war-paint,

Seated about a fire, and smoking and talk

ing together;

Who, when they saw from afar the sudden approach of the white men,

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 Wattawamat.

Round their necks were suspended their knives in scabbards of wampum, Two-edged, trenchant knives, with points as sharp as a needle.

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 bro

ther 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 Wattawamat

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,

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

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

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

sinister meaning:

" I have another at home, with the face of a man on the handle;

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 bowstrings,

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,