n the hill Standish
stood with bared head and fixed eyes silent for a little space, and then
the boom of the sunset gun sounded in solemn Amen to the soldier's
silent prayer.

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