This feeling of unfair treatment made Alexander so angry, at last, that he formed a secret alliance with the Narragansett Indians to kill all the white men. But the Plymouth governor, hearing of this, promptly sent for him, bidding him come and clear himself of the accusation of treachery. Then, as the Indian did not obey at once, Winslow quickly set out, with his men, to bring him by force.
Alexander, furious at being thus compelled to mind, fell seriously ill from fever. The colonists then allowed his followers to carry him home; but on the way back, the Indian chief breathed his last. Ever after, his people were in the habit of saying that he had gone to the Happy Hunting Grounds, where the palefaces could never come to crowd him out.
XXXVII. KING PHILIP'S WAR.
At Alexander's death, Philip became chief of his tribe; and thinking the English had poisoned Alexander, he began to plot revenge. After brooding over his wrongs for several years, Philip was accused of planning to attack the colonists. The governor of Plymouth sent word to Philip to come and explain his conduct, but, we are told, the Indian haughtily said to the messenger: "Your governor is but a subject of King Charles of England. I shall not treat with a subject. I shall only treat with the king, my brother. When he comes, I am ready."
An Indian Attack.
Still, Philip did come, and promised to keep the peace. But a few years later, he was about to fall upon the colonists unexpectedly, when a praying Indian warned them of their danger. This Indian was murdered by three of Philip's friends, who were found guilty and put to death for the crime. Not long after this, the Indians attacked the colonists at Swan´sea, as they were walking home from church, and killed all those who could not escape in time to the blockhouse.
As had been agreed beforehand, an alarm was sent right away to Plymouth and Boston, where signal fires were kindled on what is still known as Beacon Hill. An army of colonists hastily obeyed this summons, and set out to attack Philip. But the latter was too quick for them, and managed to escape from his camp at Mount Hope, with about seven hundred Indians.
Small villages and outlying farmhouses were now in constant danger; for the savages, gliding along as noiselessly as snakes, pounced upon the people by day or by night. They forced their way into the houses, killed and scalped the men, carried women and children off into captivity, and left nothing but heaps of smoking ruins behind them.