Conanchet shook his head, and spread the fingers of his two hands in a manner to describe the radii of a circle.
"Hugh!" he said, starting even while he was thus significantly answering by gestures, "a moccason comes!"
Submission, who had so often and so recently been arrayed against the savages, involuntarily sought the lock of his carbine. His look and action were menacing, though his roving eye could see no object to excite alarm.
Not so Conanchet. His quicker and more practised vision soon caught a glimpse of the warrior who was approaching, occasionally concealed by the trunks of trees, and whose tread on the dried leaves had first betrayed his proximity. Folding his arms on his naked bosom, the Narragansett chief awaited the coming of the other, in an attitude of calmness and dignity. Neither did he speak nor suffer a muscle to play, until a hand was placed on one of his arms, and he who had drawn near said, in tones of amity and respect--
"The young Sachem hath come to look for his brother?"
"Wampanoag, I have followed the trail, that your ears may listen to the talk of a Pale-face."
The third person in this interview was Metacom He shot a haughty and fierce glance at the stranger, and then turned to his companion in arms, with recovered calmness, to reply.
"Has Conanchet counted his young men since they raised the whoop?" he asked, in the language of the aborigines. "I saw many go into the fields, that never came back. Let the white men die."
"Wampanoag, he is led by the wampum of a Sachem. I have not counted my young men; but I know that they are strong enough to say that what their chief hath promised shall be done."
"If the Yengeese is a friend of my brother, he is welcome. The wigwam of Metacom is open; let him enter it."