“‘Let the righteous smite me friendly, but let not his precious balms break my head.’ Come, Myles, let us mount the Fort.”
“Yes, I must see if Lieutenant Holmes is carrying out my directions, for I promise you, Master Bradford, I’m meaning to hold a tight hand over you here in military matters. Mind you, I am always generalissimo of the colony’s forces, whether of Plymouth, or Scituate, or Duxbury.”
“I thank thee, Myles,” said the governor quietly, and so they passed into the dusky Fort, over whose portal the skull of Wituwamat still stood, bleached by summer sun and winter snow, and sheltering year by year the wrens who had an hereditary nest in its hollow.
“And you’ll come home with me, Will?” said the captain wistfully, as, a little later, they descended the hill.
“No, Myles, no; I’m not an Abraham. I can give my Isaac with submission and faith, but I cannot offer him up, nor feast upon the sacrifice.”
CHAPTER XXII.
THE MOONLIGHT AND THE DAWN.
A clumsy boat, very different from the trim racing craft that to-day skim the waters of Plymouth Bay weltered slowly toward the rude pier just below the new home of Myles Standish.