"I think you are not speaking the truth," Miles answered doggedly; he had a mind to fight Francis for such a story, but very likely if he fought, Master Hopkins would whip him. So he drooped his head under the other's taunt and plodded on to the spring. He didn't believe Francis, he repeated to himself, while he swallowed and swallowed in his throat. But there came the remembrance of the look the Captain had given him, there on the shore, and his contemptuous words, and, with a sickening fear that, for once, Francis had spoken the truth, he felt the lump in his throat swell bigger.
He did not care, though the water, as he scooped up his pailful at the spring, slopped over his shoes, but he did care when he heard on the pathway from the bluff the scatter of pebbles under a quick footstep; he could not let any one see him in so sorry a mood. Catching up his pail, he pressed into the crackling green alders at the farther side of the spring, and, as he did so, heard some one call sharply, "Miles."
It was Captain Standish's voice, Captain Standish who would want to rate him as the worst lad in the colony, who would never believe he was penitent. Miles put his head down and, crashing through the alders, never paused till the whole dense thicket lay between him and his pursuer. He could hear on the lifeless, hot air no sound save that of his own fluttering breath; no one had offered to follow him, and he felt suddenly sorry that he had escaped.
But, without courage to go back to the spring and face the Captain, he crouched down beneath the bushes and sat a long time staring through the leaves at the bright water of the brook. Up in the street he heard eager voices once, but the dread of encountering Captain Standish made him stay quiet in his hiding place, till the street was still again. Then he clambered painfully up the steeper part of the bluff below Cooke's house, and, with a new terror growing on him of the mighty scolding he could expect for his delay, scudded home.
But no one had space to scold him. When he came to the house he found Mistress Hopkins, quite silent, and Constance, with a scared face, busied about dinner, and Ned and Dotey, with Giles to help, overhauling their muskets. "What is it has happened?" Miles questioned in amazement.
"War!" Ned answered cheerily, and Mistress Hopkins, with a grewsome sort of satisfaction, added that she always said they'd yet be slain by the heathen savages.
"It happened at Namasket, five league from here," Ned ran on. "Squanto and two other friendly copper-skins, Hobbamock and Tokamahamon, they went thither quietly to learn how much truth was in this talk of rebellion against Massasoit. And there was a certain Corbitant, an under-chief of the King's, who is in league with the Narragansetts, and he discovered them. Hobbamock broke from them and came fleeing hither, not an hour agone, but Tokamahamon they took and Squanto they've slain. So we are furbishing up our muskets."
Poor Squanto, who had fetched him from Nauset, was dead. That was Miles's first thought, and he was honestly grieved. But ere dinner was out he learned from his elders that there was other fearful matter to think on, for if Massasoit's men were rebelling and joining the Narragansetts against the King and his allies, it meant a dreadful danger for the settlement.
Quietly, but resolutely enough, the Englishmen made their arrangements to march against Namasket and punish the slayers of their friends. After a night of watching and half hidden fear, next morning, in the midst of a beating rain, a little squad of ten, with the Captain at their head, and Hobbamock to guide them, went forth to the attack.