"It's the truth, though," Ned answered indifferently.
"O me!" Constance cried, with a sudden nervous wail, "I know we'll all be slain ere daybreak. O dear!" She turned to run into the bedroom, when Lister caught her by the arm. "Don't cry, Constance," he urged; "there's no need to fear. Captain Standish and some of the others are coming hither to spend the night and keep watch. You'll be safe enough."
But the girl, breaking from him, vanished into the chamber, whither Mistress Hopkins, snatching up Damaris, followed her; so, for some moments, Miles was free to ask questions and Ned to answer, as it liked them best. But, so soon as Master Hopkins's deliberate step sounded on the doorstone, Mistress Hopkins came forth and, as he entered the living room, confronted him: "Is that savage to be lodged here to-night, Stephen? Among us, where my children are?"
"He must go somewhere, Elizabeth," the master of the house replied unruffled. "He is set to stay among us for the night, and the tide is out so we may not convey him on shipboard. We can lodge him in the little closet next our chamber."
"He shall not come into the house!" said Mistress Hopkins, with her thin lips set.
"Edward Lister, do you spread out the bed within the closet," Master Hopkins went on unheedingly.
With a wink at Miles, Ned crossed the room in unusual haste, and Miles, taking a candle, followed after into the closet, a tiny room with one black window, where stood an old chest and a hogshead and a rolled-up mattress, which Ned began leisurely to spread out. "What think you, Miles?" he whispered, as the boy closed the door behind him. "It's good there is one person in the house whom the dame cannot rattle off as she list, eh?"
Miles nodded vaguely, his attention all fixed on the least details of the commonplace room which now had a fearful interest from the guest it was to shelter. The thought of the savage stranger filled the place with such awesome fancies that he could not help going out from it very hastily ahead of Lister, who grumbled a little that Miles was so speedy to be off with the candle.
Once in the bright living room, however, he became very brave indeed, and wondered to Giles Hopkins when the Sagamore Samoset would come. His mood grew the bolder when the elder lad showed him a dirk knife he had placed under his doublet. "For there's no being sure with these treacherous savages," Giles said seriously.
But when the Sagamore came at last, the boys found that the Hopkins household would be well guarded, for with him were not only Master Hopkins and Dotey, but big John Alden and Captain Standish. The very sight of the latter reassured Miles, so down he sat on the floor by the hearth, with his arm round Trug, who, as soon as he spied the Indian, bristled the hair on his back and uttered a throaty growl.