"For thee, wife!" murmured the captain, and fired.
Bark and splinters flew from the tree where the crown of the warrior's head had showed for an instant, but a shriek of derisive laughter told that no further harm was done. Standish, with a grim smile, reloaded his snaphance, while two more arrows vigorously flew, one piercing the right sleeve of his doublet, the other aimed at his face, which he avoided by moving his head. Then for one instant a dusky arm was seen reaching over the shoulder for another arrow, and in that instant the snaphance rang cheerily out, the arm fell with a convulsive movement, and a piercing cry rang through the wood, followed by the pattering of many moccasoned feet, as dusky shadows slipped from tree to tree, and were lost in the dim recesses of the forest.
"They are routed! They fly!" cried Howland firing his piece into a rustling thicket.
"Yes, that last cry was the retreat," said Standish half regretfully plucking the arrow from his sleeve. "The chief finds his courage cooled by a broken elbow. I doubt me if ever he speed arrow again."
"Body o' me!" continued he examining the shaft in his hand. "See you, John, 't is pointed with naught but a bird's talon, curiously bound on with its own sinews. To be scratched to death by a fowl were but a poor ending for a man that has fought Alva!"
"Pursue them, Captain, pursue and terrify, but kill not, if you can help it," ordered Carver eagerly. "Let the heathen know that they are but men, and that the Lord of Hosts is on our side."
"Forward then, men! At the double-quick! Run!" and, waving his sword, Standish rushed after the flying savages, followed by all but Carver, English, and the sailors who stayed to guard the randevous and the pinnace. But even as he ran Myles muttered, perhaps to the sword Gideon,—
"Beshrew me if I see how I am to hurl yon text in the heathen's teeth, sith we have no common tongue, and they will not stop for parley! A good man, and a gentle, but no soldier, is our governor!"
As might have been expected, the Pilgrims, in their heavy clothing and armor, proved no match for the Indians in a foot-race, and after pursuing them for about a quarter of a mile Standish called a halt, and ordered his men to raise a shout of mingled triumph and defiance, followed by a volley of three, each three reloading as the next fired.
The victory thus asserted, and the foe offering no response, the little army retired in good order upon the randevous, where they only tarried long enough to pick up the rest of their possessions and make a sheaf of arrows, pointed not only with eagle's claws, but with the tips of deer's horns and bits of brass and iron gathered from the various European vessels touching for provisions or traffic at these shores.