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Updated: June 1, 2025
So Winslow told how Massasoit had been urged again and again to join the conspiracy, but never would, although his pride had been indeed sore wounded by a lying story of how the governor and captain and Winslow, his especial friend, having been told of his desperate illness, cared naught for it, not even enough to send Hobomok his own pniese to inquire for him; and now, being undeceived, he would himself have killed the liar, whose name was Pecksuot, but on second thought left him to the white men whom he earnestly charged to take the matter into their own hands, and with no warning, no parley, to go and kill Pecksuot, Wituwamat, Obtakiest, and several other ringleaders of the conspiracy, for, as he assured them most earnestly and solemnly, unless these men were promptly and effectually dealt with, both the Weymouth colony and themselves would be overwhelmed and massacred without mercy.
As earnest of his authority Wituwamat here presented Canacum with a knife stolen or bought from the Weymouth settlers, and jeeringly said the coward pale faces had brought over the weapons that should cut their own throats.
Standish received the careless salutation of the new-comer in silent gravity, and stepping to the door summoned Howland and Alden to his side, first however sending a message to the boat-keepers to be well on guard against a surprise. Returning into the hut with his two friends, the captain found Wituwamat upon his feet beginning an impassioned harangue to Canacum, who listened uneasily.
Standish was already an excellent Indian scholar, and could converse in several dialects with great ease; but so soon as he appeared Wituwamat fell into a style so figurative and blind, and took pains to use such unusual and obsolete expressions, that Canacum himself could hardly understand him, and Standish was soon left hopelessly in the background.
Perceiving that he did not mean to act, some of the Indians who had lingered a little behind at first, now came forward, hopping and dancing around Standish, whetting their knives upon their palms, making insulting gestures, and shouting all sorts of jeers and taunts at him and the white men generally. Then Wituwamat came forward and in his own tongue cried out,
A wild cry of death and defeat rung through the room as he fell headlong, and Wituwamat turning his head to look, gave Billington his chance and received his own mortal wound; while Kamuso fighting with the silent courage of a great warrior only succumbed at last beneath a dozen wounds from Hopkins's short sword, and Howland having disarmed and wounded his opponent presented him as prisoner under Standish's orders.
If it should prove as represented he was to at once attack whatever leaders of the conspiracy might be found, and in especial he was to slay Wituwamat, of whom Massasoit had spoken as the heart of the conspiracy, and to bring his head to Plymouth to be set over the gate of the Fort as a proof and a warning to their neighbors on the east, whom they would not now punish, but hoped rather to persuade.
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