"The Neponsets number forty warriors," suggested Winslow.

"Yes, but they will not be gathered together, having no knowledge of our purpose, and if the shallop is watched from sh.o.r.e, as belike it will be, a large force of armed men would bewray our intent, and runners would gather the braves in a few hours and so bring down a great slaughter upon the tribe," replied the captain in confident simplicity. "But if we go no more in number than ordinary, no more than in our late voyage to Nauset for corn, they will suspect nothing, and the matter may be well concluded with no more than five or six examples, Wituwamat being the princ.i.p.al."

"And glad am I, brother, to see a certain tenderness of human life in your counsels," said the elder approvingly.

"Nay, elder, I am not all out a cannibal and ogre," replied the captain.

"So now I will choose me Hopkins and Howland and Billington, and Eaton and Browne and Cooke and Soule, seven hearts of oak and arms of steel: it is enough."

"And not one of us Fortune men, Captain?" demanded Robert Hicks, a stalwart fellow who afterward became almost a rebel to the colony's authority.

"Nay, Master Hicks," replied the captain gravely. "I mean no discredit to the courage or the good will of the new-comers, of whom you are a princ.i.p.al; but this service is one of strategy as well as daring, and so soon as the pinnace leaves yon Rock, there must be but one mind and one will in her, and that is mine. The men whom I have chosen, my comrades of the Mayflower, I know as I know mine own sword, and I can trust them as I do him. There's no offense Master Hicks, but a stricken field is no place to learn to handle a new sword or a new comrade."

"And not me, Master," said a low voice as the captain stepped out of the Common house and turned his face homeward.

"Nay, Jack, I've a text for thee too. 'I have married a wife and cannot come.'" And with a somewhat bitter laugh he strode on up the hill, leaving John Alden looking sadly after him.

That night as Standish slowly entered the Fort to fire his sunset gun, he was startled at seeing a m.u.f.fled figure seated upon an empty powder keg in an angle of the works. As he appeared she rose, and pushing back her hood showed the beautiful face of Priscilla Molines, now strangely pale and distraught.

"You here, Mistress Molines," exclaimed the captain somewhat sternly.

"Alden is not coming."

"It is not Alden but Captain Standish I fain would speak withal, and I hope he will pardon my forwardness in seeking him here."

The captain briefly waved the apology aside. "Your commands, madam?"

inquired he.

"Nay, nay sir, my father's dear loved friend, my brother's tender nurse,--mine--oh what shall I say, how shall I plead for a little kindness. Have pity on a froward maid's distress"--

"What Priscilla, thou canst weep!"

"And why not when my heart is sorrowful unto death."

"But--there then, child, wipe thine eyes and look up and let me see thee smile as thou art wont. What is it, maid? What is thy sorrow?"

"That you will not forgive me, sir."

"Forgive thee for what?" But the captain dropped the hand he had seized in his sympathy, and the dark look crept back to his face.

"Thou 'rt going to a terrible danger--my friend--and it may be to thy death."

"Well girl, 't is not worth crying for if I am. Life is not so sweet to me that I should over much dread to lay it down with honor."

"Oh, oh, and it is my fault!"--sobbed Priscilla.

The captain strode up and down the narrow s.p.a.ce pulling at his red beard and frowning thoughtfully; then stopping before the girl who stood as he had left her, he quietly said,--

"Priscilla, I was indeed thy father's friend, and I am thine, and I fain would have wed thee, and thou didst refuse, preferring John Alden, who also is my friend, even as my younger brother, whose honor and well being are dear to me as mine own. What then is the meaning of thy grief, and what is thy request?"

"My grief is that since the day I gave John Alden my promise, you, sir, have been no more my friend, but ever looked upon me with coldness and disdain; and now that you go, it may be to your death, it breaketh my heart to have it so, and I fain would beg your forgiveness for aught I have done to offend you, though I know not what it may be."

"Know not--well, well, let it pa.s.s--'t is but one more traverse. Yes child, I forgive thee for what to me seemed like something of scorn and slight, something of double dealing and treachery--nay, we'll say no more on 't. Here is my hand, Priscilla--and surely thy father's friend may for once taste thy cheek. Now child, we're friends and dear friends, and if yon savage sheathes his knife in my heart perhaps thou 'lt shed a tear or two, and say a prayer for the soul of--thy father's friend.

And now thy pet.i.tion, for time presses."

"That thou wilt take John Alden with thee."

"What then! Who shall read a woman's will aright! I left him at home for thy sake, Priscilla."

"So I guessed and I thank you--nay, I thank you not for so misjudging me." And the fire in the hazel eyes upraised to his, dried the tears sharply.

"Why, what now! Dost want thy troth-plight lover slain?"

"No in truth, nor do I want my troth-plight friend, for thou art that now, slain; but neither do I want the one nor the other to lurk safely at home when his brothers are at the war. There's no coward's blood in my heart more than in yours, Captain Standish, and I care not to shelter any man behind my petticoats. I have not wed John Alden all this long year and more, because I would not wed with your frown black upon my heart, and I will not wed him now until he hath showed himself a man upon that same field whence you do not greatly care to come alive."

"Nay, Priscilla, I care more now for life than I did an hour since, for I have a friend."

"And you will take John, and if he comes home alive you'll smile upon our marriage?"

"Yes girl, yes to both. G.o.d bless you, Priscilla, for a brave and true woman. And now--good-night."

A moment later as the dark clad figure flitted down the hill Standish stood with bared head and fixed eyes silent for a little s.p.a.ce, and then the boom of the sunset gun sounded in solemn Amen to the soldier's silent prayer.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

PECKSUOT'S KNIFE.

The next morning as the village sat at breakfast, two men at half an hour's interval pa.s.sed hastily down the forest trail, and entering the town sought the governor's house.

The first was Wa.s.sapinewat, 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 Wa.s.sapinewat, at sight of whom Phineas started and trembled, then pointing a finger at him shrieked,--

"Have a care, Governor! 'T is one of the b.l.o.o.d.y 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 hara.s.sed 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 ma.s.sacre.

Both Pratt and Wa.s.sapinewat 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.