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Standish silently permitted him to do as he would, but, as on the previous evening, he divided the little company into watches, one to sleep and one to stand on guard. "So soon as he sleeps I shall kill him," muttered Kamuso to Wituwamat, as they secretly met behind Canacum's wigwam. "Give me now the knife sent by Obtakiest."
"Here it is, brother, and when it is red with the blood of The Sword it shall be thine own. Else it returns to him who sends it." "It shall be red, it shall drink, it shall drip with the brave blood, it shall shine as the sun rising across the waters! It shall feast, and Kamuso shall be chief of Obtakiest's pnieses; yes, he shall be sachem of the Massachusetts!"
Let no more of the salvages into the stockade until we have settled with these. Hobomok, tell Pecksuot, Kamuso, whom I saw behind the rest, Wituwamat, and that notorious ruffian his brother, that I fain would speak with them in this place." "Four to four," remarked Billington with grewsome relish. "Ay.
Night falling before the corn could be loaded, and ice making so suddenly as to freeze the shallop in before she fairly floated, the captain was obliged to accept an invitation for himself and crew to sleep in one of the Indian huts; but as the chief with some of his principal men escorted them to it, Standish's quick eye surprised a glance between one of the strangers and a Pamet Indian called Kamuso, who had always appeared to be one of the warmest friends of the white men, but in whose manner to-night Standish felt something of treachery and evil intention.
Take you Wituwamat; Hopkins, I leave you to deal with Kamuso; Howland, take the young fellow, and I will deal with Pecksuot, for in truth he is a bigger man than I, but we will see if he is a better."
And he was right, for Kamuso had been won over to the conspiracy beginning with the Narragansetts and extending all the way down the Cape, and so soon as runners from the Nausets had warned the Mattakees that Standish and a small crew were about to land among them, it was agreed that now was the best time to cut off The-Sword-of-the-White-Men, and so deprive the colony of one of its principal safeguards.
"A kettle! My brother would like a kettle!" exclaimed he now. "Nay, a friend of mine hath one which I will buy of him and present to The Sword. I am rich, I Kamuso, and can make rich presents to those I love."
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.
"'T is easier to be the terror of one's foes than the delight of one's friends," muttered Standish gloomily, and then pulling himself together he stirred the embers with his heel, and throwing on more wood said carelessly, "E'en as thou wilt. Kamuso, go or stay, watch or sleep, 't is all one to me."
As the shallop pushed off from shore, an Indian came running down the beach, and with a cat-like spring leaped upon the deck. It was Kamuso, who said he was bound for Sandwich and would beg a passage in the pinnace.
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