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"The Sword has pierced our intention," said Janno to Kamuso in their own tongue as the two withdrew. "Better give it up. He has eyes all around him." "I will kill him," retorted Kamuso sullenly. "To-night, to-morrow, next week, I will kill him."
It was really worth something to hear Squanto declaim this wild prophecy with the shrill voice and fevered gestures of the delirious captive; and as they caught his meaning the pnieses around Janno stirred in their places, laid hand upon the tomahawk at each man's girdle, and cast menacing looks upon the strangers. "Have a care, Squanto!
Poor Janno, weak but not wicked, his punishment was both swift and stern; for fleeing a little later from the vengeance of the white men, he perished miserably among the swamps and thickets of Barnstable, and his lonely grave was only lately discovered. Go and look at his bones in Pilgrim Hall at Plymouth and muse upon the dangers of cowardice and weakness.
The next day so soon as the shallop floated and was loaded Standish embarked, sick at heart as he received the slavish homage of Janno, whom he had liked and trusted so much, and who even while he yielded to the plot for the captain's death and that of all his friends really clung to him in love and reverence.
Janno himself would fain have spared Standish, with whom he had ever been on friendly terms; but Kamuso so wrought upon the Mattakee warriors that their sachem was forced either to drop the reins altogether or to suffer his unruly steeds to take their own course. Like Pontius Pilate he chose the latter course, and to his own destruction.
At a later day, however, one of the warriors then present repeated to the captain the amount of the Neponset's message, which was that Obtakiest, sachem of the Neponsets, had entered into a solemn compact with Canonicus, sachem of the Narragansetts, to cut off the Weymouth colonists, root and branch; but that as the Plymouth men would assuredly revenge their brethren, it was necessary that they should perish as well, and that while the two chiefs mentioned advanced upon the settlement from the west, they invited Canacum, Janno, and Aspinet to fall upon them from the east, and having slain man and boy to equably divide the women and other plunder.
Tell her that she would do ill to curse us, for we are friends to her and her people." "And ask who was The-White-Fool, and what his story," demanded Standish as Squanto finished rendering the governor's message. "Squanto know that in himself. Every Pokanoket know that," replied Squanto, while Janno muttered gloomily in his own tongue, "All red men know The-White-Fool's curse. All feel it."
Bradford at once dispatched Squanto and Tockamahamon, who had come along as guides and interpreters, to interview these men and barter for some of the shellfish, but in a very short time the envoys came splashing merrily back with an invitation for the white men to land and breakfast with Janno, the chief of the Mattakees, who was, the fishermen said, close at hand.
In vain Janno offered another wigwam if this were too small, and urged that all his white brothers should sleep at once while his own men watched; in vain Kamuso tried to attach himself to the party inside, meaning to stab the captain in his sleep; without a show of anger or suspicion Standish put both attempts aside, and finally with a jeering laugh advised Janno to retire to his own wigwam and to order his braves to do the same, for some of the white men as he averred were given to discharging their pieces in their sleep, or at any shadow that came within range, and it might happen that some of his friends should thus come by harm, which would be a great grief to him.
An hour later the shallop, now riding gayly upon the flood tide, put forth from Barnstable Harbor, carrying not only its own crew, but Janno with several of his followers, he having volunteered as guide and negotiator with Aspinet for the restoration of little Billington.
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