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All fear of the boy's escaping to his friends was removed from his mind; for he was about to retire from that part of the country to a wild district far to the west, and to join his allies, the Pequodees, in a hunting expedition to some distant prairies.
These were a band of more than three hundred Pequodees, sent by Sassacus to aid the garrison of Fort Mystic. Happily, they did not discover the small number of the English who were in a condition to oppose them, and they turned aside, and avoided a re-encounter.
At first they imagined them to be a hostile body of Narragansetts, or Pequodees, who had discovered the manner in which that day was being spent among the pale-faces, and had resolved upon breaking the recently-formed treaty, and attempting their destruction while they were thus assembled together and unarmed.
And yet with shame be it said! the Christian leader of the troops of Massachusetts, himself a member of the strict and exclusive Church of Boston, surpassed these savages in cruelty. On one occasion, he made prisoners of nearly a hundred Pequodees.
The emissary was instructed to say nothing of the quarrel with the English; for Coubitant wished to get Henrich into the power of the Pequodees, before he became aware of the service that was to be required of him; and he trusted that no intelligence would reach him in the desolate country through which he and his warriors would have to march.
The Pequodees, dreading the power of the English, endeavored to move the Narragansetts who had from the most distant times been their rivals and enemies to join them in an offensive and defensive alliance against the white men, whom they represented as a common foe to the Indians, and the future destroyers of their race.
The only act which met with his approbation in the conclusion of the campaign, was the assignment of the depopulated lands of the Pequodees to Uncas, the Chief of the Mohicans. As being a conquered territory, the usual laws of war would have annexed it to the territory of the victors.
Many weeks elapsed after the Nausett party had joined the friendly Pequodees, ere any preparations were made for journeying to the west; and these days were chiefly employed by Henrich in improving his knowledge of the Indian language, and especially of the Nausett dialect, by conversing with Oriana and her young companions, both male and female.
But his men were eager to attack the savages, and the Indians taunted him with cowardice for desiring to delay the conflict; and he was forced to advance at once. The great strength of the Pequodees consisted in two large forts, in one of which the redoubted Chief, Sassacus, himself commanded.
They resolved that he should communicate all his suspicions to the Sachem the following morning, and urge him to take measures for the safety of his adopted son: but what was Jyanough's surprise, when he opened the subject to Tisquantum, at being informed that Coubitant had already left the camp with the Pequodees!
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