A little after noon the shallop made the harbor of Sandwich, or as the Pilgrims called it Manomet, and Standish at once went ashore, eager to see if Canacum shared in the wide-spread disaffection of the Indians. But ten minutes in the sachem's wigwam convinced the wary observer that something was wrong, for the old friendliness of manner had given place to restraint and formality; and although Canacum was very ready to deliver the corn, and professed great pleasure at the captain's visit, his voice and manner were both cold and false, and such of his braves as came into the wigwam showed a very different face from what Standish had hitherto encountered.
Suddenly a sound was heard without, and as the captain sprang to his feet and laid his hand upon Gideon's hilt, the door-mat was thrust aside, and two Indians recognized by their paint as Neponsets entered the cabin. Canacum received them with effusive cordiality, and presented the principal one to Standish as Wituwamat a pniese of the Neponsets.
Standish received the careless salutation of the new-comer in silent gravity, and stepping to the door summoned Howland and Alden to his side, first however sending a message to the boat-keepers to be well on guard against a surprise.
Returning into the hut with his two friends, the captain found Wituwamat upon his feet beginning an impassioned harangue to Canacum, who listened uneasily. Standish was already an excellent Indian scholar, and could converse in several dialects with great ease; but so soon as he appeared Wituwamat fell into a style so figurative and blind, and took pains to use such unusual and obsolete expressions, that Canacum himself could hardly understand him, and Standish was soon left hopelessly in the background. At a later day, however, one of the warriors then present repeated to the captain the amount of the Neponset's message, which was that Obtakiest, sachem of the Neponsets, had entered into a solemn compact with Canonicus, sachem of the Narragansetts, to cut off the Weymouth colonists, root and branch; but that as the Plymouth men would assuredly revenge their brethren, it was necessary that they should perish as well, and that while the two chiefs mentioned advanced upon the settlement from the west, they invited Canacum, Janno, and Aspinet to fall upon them from the east, and having slain man and boy to equably divide the women and other plunder. As earnest of his authority Wituwamat here presented Canacum with a knife stolen or bought from the Weymouth settlers, and jeeringly said the coward pale faces had brought over the weapons that should cut their own throats.
Having thus delivered his message, the Neponset indulged himself in a burst of self-glorification, boasting that he had in his day killed both French and Englishmen, and that he found the sport very amusing, for they died crying and making wry faces more like children than men.
"What is the impudent villain saying, and what means that knife, Captain?" muttered Howland in the captain's ear, but he shaking his head impatiently replied,—
"He means violence and treachery of some sort, but what form it takes I wot not. Be on your guard, John."
The harangue ended, refreshments were served, but the Neponsets were now treated with so much more courtesy and attention than the white men that Standish refusing the poorer portion offered to him and his comrades, rose and indignantly left the cabin, ordering his men to construct a shelter near the beach, and there cook some of the provisions they had brought. But they had hardly begun to do this when Kamuso appeared, full of indignant protests at Canacum's inhospitality, and loudly declaring that an affront to his friends was an affront to him, and he should desert the wigwam where the red men were feasting, and share the humbler fare of his white friends.
"Well, I wish thou hadst brought along a kettle to cook some corn in!" exclaimed Standish with something of his old joviality of manner, for his suspicions in falling upon Canacum had in some degree lifted from Kamuso, who certainly played his part with wonderful skill, and had he been white instead of red, and civilized instead of savage, might have left his name on record as a diplomatist beside that of Machiavelli or Ignatius Loyola.
"A kettle! My brother would like a kettle!" exclaimed he now. "Nay, a friend of mine hath one which I will buy of him and present to The Sword. I am rich, I Kamuso, and can make rich presents to those I love."