med."

The settlers debated the matter among themselves for a while, and
although a few and those of the best, decided to accept the invitation
to Plymouth albeit somewhat coldly given, the majority decided to desert
the post where they had suffered so much, and to join some other of
Weston's men at Monhegan. The Pilgrims cheerfully lent their help, and
before night the settlers had loaded all their portable property into
the Swan, Standish had seen the gates of the stockade securely bolted
and barred, and Hobomok with some red paint had traced upon each a
hideous emblem, which he assured the white men would frighten away any
predatory Indian.

Standish only laughed, but Hopkins nodded sagely.

"The rogue is right--I know the symbol, and have seen the terror it
carries," said he; and true it is that whether from superstitious or
from martial terrors, that stockade and the houses it enclosed, and the
body of the savage left swinging from the tree in their midst, were
never molested or apparently visited by the red men again. As the heavy
laden Swan weltered out of the harbor, victualed with all that remained
of Standish's seed corn except a scanty ration apiece to his own men,
the pinnace bore gallantly up for Plymouth, and in due course joyfully
arrived there bringing home all her crew victorious and unscathed.

With them came Wituwamat's head to be set on a pike over the gateway of
the Fort, for these our Fathers were not of our day or thought in such
matters; and these Englishmen did but follow the usage of England, when
so lately as 1747 the heads of the unhappy Pretender's more unhappy
followers defiled the air of London's busiest street.

Standish for one never doubted of the justice of his course either in
the slaying of the colony's avowed enemies, or the exposure of the
ringleader's head; not even when a year or so later Bradford sorrowfully
placed in his hands a letter just received from his revered Pastor
Robinson at Leyden, who in commenting on the death of the Indians
said,--

"Oh how happy a thing it had been had you converted some before you had
killed any. Let me be bold to exhort you seriously to consider of the
disposition of your captain, whom I love;--but there is cause to fear
that by occasion, especially of provocation, there may be wanting in him
that tenderness of the life of man made after God's image, that is
meet."

Standish read the letter, and returning it without a word went out from