# Metipom's Hostage/Chapter 18
### CHAPTER XVIII IN KING PHILIP’S POWER

The eastern sky paled beyond the green-clad hills. A bird high on the topmost branch of a great oak tree chirped experimentally and then burst into a trilling welcome to the new day. A flush of rose crept above the horizon and cast its fairy radiance through the cloistered forest. To the weary boy who leaned against the smooth, cool bole of a beech tree the coming of dawn was grateful, indeed. All through the night he had traversed the woods, resting at times for short periods, silently, cautiously, guiding his steps by the stars. Progress had been woefully slow, and now that day was approaching he had scant knowledge of the distance he had traveled. He had heard an Indian say that the English town of Brookfield was a “little journey” to the south of the Wachoosett encampment. A “little journey” meant usually from ten to a dozen English miles, although the Indians were grandly vague in such matters. It seemed to David as he ​paused to rest that he must surely have traveled that distance, and now he searched the forest for indications of cleared country. Near at hand a half-dry little stream wandered between ledges and fern banks, and David sought it and drank deeply and laved face and hands in the cool water. Then, refreshed, he turned his steps away from the dawn and set out to find the settlement.
Presently a well-defined path lay before him, proceeding in the general direction of the course he had chosen. The path was wide and hard-trodden and tempted him sorely. By taking it he could make much better progress, but there was always the possibility of an unwelcome meeting on the trail. Still, not once since he had slipped away from the Wachoosett village had he so much as heard a footstep, and it seemed quite probable to him that he was now close to Brookfield and that enemy savages would not be found so near to the settlement. So, after a moment’s deliberation, he stepped forth into the path and went on quickly, though keeping a sharp watch the while. The trail turned and wound frequently and he kept close at one side or the other that he might step back from sight if needs be. A dog barked afar off and was ​answered. The light increased steadily, and suddenly and like a miracle the forest became filled with the golden radiance of the sun. Only the upper reaches of the trees were illumined as yet and down below the blue shadows still lingered, but the sight brought joy and new courage to the traveler. And then, silently skirting a bend in the path, his heart stood still for an instant ere it began a wild tattoo against his ribs. Not ten paces before him stood two savages, short, stocky men in full war paraphernalia, painted and feathered. Retreat would have been futile, for they had seen him as soon as he had seen them. Remained only to put a good face on the encounter and win by. A second look showed David that, whatever the Indians were, they were not Wachoosetts. Nor did it seem that they were natives of the country thereabouts. Their tomahawks were long-hilted and heavy of head and their girdles hung lower in front. And yet they might be Quaboags, in which case he had nothing to fear, since so far the Quaboags still professed friendship for the English.
His pause had been but momentary, and now he went forward, one hand outspread in the Nipmuck salutation. “Netop!” he ​called. The strangers made no answer for a moment, but looked him up and down with sidelong glances. Then one replied in a language the boy did not know. But the words were plainly a question, and David, resolving to pass himself off for what he seemed, a Wachoosett, answered in the Nipmuck tongue.
“I am a Wachoosett,” he said. “Woosonametipom is my sachem. We lodge three leagues northward. We come on a friendly visit to this country. Who are you, brothers?”
The Indians seemed to understand something of what he said. Doubtless the words Wachoosett and Woosonametipom were familiar: perhaps others, since many words were similar in the different tongues. One of the two, a cruel-visaged savage with much tattooing on his body, grunted doubtfully, but the other embarked on a long speech, none of which David could fathom. But he listened gravely and respectfully, paused at one side of the path, until the man had ended. Then he replied with all the compliments and friendly phrases he could muster in Nipmuck; and wished all the time that he had at least a knife or spear. It was the ​cruel-faced one who solved the difficulty of intercourse by lapsing into what passed for English with him.
“No talk um talk. Where um go?”
“I go Brookfield. Which way um, brother?”
“What for um go Brookfield? ”
“I take message to English from my sachem.”
“Where um message?” The savage held out a hand imperiously.
David shook his head and pointed to his forehead. “In here,” he replied. Then he pointed down the path. “Brookfield this way?” he asked.
The other bowed, but shot a suspicious and scowling look from under his brows. David took a long breath and stepped forward.
“Farewell, brothers.”
THERE WAS A SWIFT whlz-z! BESIDE HIM AND AN ARROW EMBEDDED ITSELF IN A SAPLING
They, too, stopped while still a few paces away, drawing apart that he might not slip past. The ugly one grinned wickedly and swung his tomahawk with ferocious menace.
“Why um Englishman run?” he asked.
“Why did you shoot at me?” demanded David sternly.
The other savage replied. “Um say um Wachoosett. What for tell um lie, brother?”
“I am Englishman, aye, but I come from Woosonametipom’s lodge. I am friend of Wachoosett, friend of Indians. I not know if you be my friend. So I say I’m Wachoosett. You see I no have weapon.”
“You come along me,” growled the cruel-faced Indian. “No run away. Me kill.”
“Where I go?” asked David.
“You no ask um question. You come along grand.”
The savage pointed back along the trail with his big tomahawk. After an instant’s indecision, David went. They put him ahead and followed close behind him. In such manner the three traversed a hundred rods of the trail. Then a hand on the boy’s arm ​swung him to the right and he discerned a faintly visible path, scarcely more than a deer runway, that led toward the east. For a good half-hour he traveled, now turning right and now left, and at last the woods thinned and a rocky hillside meadow came into sight. Along the border of this they passed and crossed a muddy stream, and, with the morning sunlight full in their faces, mounted a bushy ridge and went down the other side of it and into a tract of marshy ground grown head-high with yellowing rushes and interspersed with alder and white birch. A dog barked suddenly from close at hand, so unexpectedly that David, picking his steps across the swamp, started and went floundering to his knees in the slimy water. In another instant the rushes were gone, trampled flat by many feet, and a little island sprang from the marsh, and David saw many Indians and some rude huts of branches and bark before him. A mangy dog rushed at his legs and ran off howling as one of the boy’s captors struck him with his bow. The sunlit air was filled with the smoke of fires, voices growled, and David was thrust into the midst of a group of painted savages.
More curious than unfriendly they seemed, ​but that was due to the fact that for a moment they failed to penetrate his disguise. It was not until his captors spoke, explaining and pointing, that the Indians began to murmur and growl and even laugh derisively. One seized David’s scalp-lock and gave it a mighty tug as if expecting it to come off like a wig, and David, resenting the pain, thoughtlessly struck his arm away. The Indian, a tall, bone-faced brave, uttered a cry and thrust forward with the spear held in his other hand. But David saw in time and leaped back, crowding against the throng behind him, and one of his captors interposed and the crowd laughed a little. At this moment David was aware of one who was pushing his way toward him with no gentle use of his elbows, a large and heavily built Indian who wore a coat that was covered entirely with wampum of many hues arranged not unpleasingly in strange designs. Authority became him well, for, although there was something sinister in the cold glitter of his eyes, his features were not unpleasing and held a certain nobility, and David, observing all fell back in deference, and seeing that wampum coat whose fame was widespread, knew that he was face to face with the ​arch-enemy, King Philip, sachem of the Wampanoags.
Pushing aside one of David’s captors, who had interposed between the boy and the Indian with the spear, King Philip looked for a moment at the prisoner with straight and piercing gaze. Then, in a pleasant voice and with friendly mien, he asked: “You English?”
“Aye.”
“What is your name?”
“David Lindall.”
“Where you dwell, David?”
“Near the long rapids of the Charles River, westward of Nonantum.”
“You know Great Teacher Eliot, maybe, by place called Natick?”
“Aye, his village of the Praying Indians is but two leagues from my father’s house.”
“He is fine man,” said Pometacom gravely. “Come to my lodge, David, and make talk.”
The wigwam of the sachem was a small and poorly built affair of bark over poles. There were a few pieces of rush matting on the floor and a few cooking-utensils beside the still warm ashes of the fire. David saw that there were neither women nor children ​about, while he estimated the number of Pometacom’s warriors at near sixty, a number much smaller than he would have surmised. With the chief went a young and strikingly intelligent appearing Indian, named Caleb, who was even more gaudily bedecked than the sachem himself, save for the latter’s famous wampum coat. All seated themselves, and then, having lighted his pipe with much care and deliberation, King Philip, still speaking in a gentle fashion, questioned David closely. The latter, determining to tell a truthful story, told of his adventures from the time of his capture by Sequanawah, and the sachem heard him silently, nodding now and then, puffing occasional volumes of choking smoke from his stone pipe. The second Indian listened as closely, but there was an expression on his face that David did not like. When he had ended his narrative, the sachem, to David’s intense surprise, asked abruptly:
“You know Captain Hutchinson?”
“Hutchinson? Nay, I know him not, King Philip.”
“You come from Brookfield?”
“Nay, I was seeking Brookfield when your warriors fell upon me, as I have told.”
​“You tell lies!” The sachem’s voice deepened to an angry growl. “You English spy. You make show you Wachoosett. You put red juice on your body and feather in your hair. You say you go with message from Woosonametipom Sachem to English at Brookfield village. You tell so to my warriors when they find you in forest. You not make fool of Philip! You tell me truth, David!”
“I have told you the truth, King Philip. If you doubt me, you need but send a messenger to Woosonametipom. He will tell you that I speak truth.”
The sachem wagged his head from side to side and motioned fretfully with the hand that held his pipe. “I not believe. You spy. Maybe I kill you, maybe I not. You answer me truth what I ask; we see. How many fighting men this Captain Hutchinson have?”
“I do not know.”
The sachem rewarded him with a sidelong, drooping glance that sent a chill down the boy’s spine and spoke with the younger Indian in native language. Then for several minutes King Philip spat questions at David, seeking, it appeared, to learn what forces ​of the English were in that vicinity, and likewise the identity of certain Indians who, it seemed, were serving with the English as guides. But to not one question could David make intelligent answer, and the sachem grew each moment more incensed, until, in the end, he tossed his pipe on the ground and sprang to his feet.
“You not talk now, you English dog, but soon you talk grand! Much heat make tongue wag! Plenty fire you get, plenty talk you make! You see!”
The younger Indian pulled David to his feet and thrust him before him through the doorway. Outside he called others and they came gathering about with cruel, snarling grins. He who had haled him forth spoke for a minute, evidently directing, and then hands were again laid on the boy and he was pushed and dragged over the ground toward where, at an edge of the swamp island, a lone cedar tree stood. Until they approached it, David believed the sachem’s threat to be but idle, born of exasperation and anger, but now he knew that it was to be carried out. Fear and desperation lent him strength. Wrenching himself free from the grasps of those who held him, he shot a clenched fist into the face ​of one before him, eluded a second, and dashed for freedom. But the attempt was hopeless from the first. Before him lay morass and stagnant pools, and even had he reached the swamp, he would have been soon recaptured. As it was, he was overtaken before he had gained it and found himself writhing, striking, even kicking with moccasined feet, in the grasp of many angry foes. And so, although he struck some lusty blows, he was speedily subdued, and lay, panting and glaring, on the ground while thongs were passed about his wrists and ankles and drawn cruelly tight. Then he was borne to the tree and held on his feet while, with his back against the twisted trunk, other ropes and thongs made him fast to it. His wrists were unbound and his arms drawn back around the tree and then secured again, which brought him into an attitude of much pain. When the last knot was tied, the Indians drew back and inspected him with grunts of satisfaction and smiles of cruel pleasure, and one whose bleeding lips proclaimed him as the recipient of David’s blow stepped forward and struck him brutally in the face. The boy, seeing the savage’s intention, jerked his head aside and the blow landed on the ​side of his chin. But even so, it dazed him for a moment, and in that moment another delivered a resounding slap with open palm against David’s face. The boy’s head dropped to his shoulder and his eyes closed, and, seeing him so, the Indians, muttering and spitting upon him, went their ways.