But before he struck with the hatchet, the old Indian also made a little speech, to the body.
"You have been a very great man," he said, "and have made many a man afraid of you; but so big as you are, I will now chop you up."
And so he did.
King Philip was known not only by his face, but by a mangled hand in which a pistol had burst. His head and his crippled hand were awarded to Alderman, who had betrayed him; Alderman was told to exhibit them through New England, if he wished, as a traveling show. He gained many shillings in fees.
The four quarters of King Philip were hung to the branches of a tree. The head was stuck upon a gibbet at Plymouth for twenty years. The hand was kept at Boston. Caleb Cook traded with Alderman for King Philip's gun; and King Philip's wife and little boy were sold as slaves in the West Indies.
Now the Terror of New England had been subdued. He had been leading such a sorry life, of late, that no doubt he was glad to be done, and to have fallen in his stride and not in chains. His age is not stated.
Thus peace came to the colony of Plymouth in Massachusetts, and King Philip had few left to mourn for him, until, after a season, even some of the English writers, their spirit softened, began to grant that he might have been as much a patriot as a traitor.
In another century, the colonists themselves rebelled against a government which they did not like.