Amazement of the Indians.
Destitution of the English.
The Mohegans and Narragansets, who had timidly followed the English, and who had not ventured into the fort of the dreaded Pequots, stood tremblingly at a distance, gazing with dismay upon their swift and terrible destruction. The morning was cold, and a strong wind swept the bleak hills. The little army was entirely destitute of provisions, for no baggage-wagons could accompany them through the wilderness. They had hoped to obtain corn from the Indian fort, but the conflagration to which they had been unexpectedly compelled to resort had consumed every thing. Several of their number had been killed; more than twenty were severely wounded. Their surgeon and all their necessaries for the wounded were on board the vessels, which were to have sailed the night before from Narraganset Bay for Pequot Harbor. Nearly all their ammunition was consumed. At a short distance from them there was another still more formidable fort filled with fierce Pequot warriors, where Sassacus himself commanded. Thus, even in this hour of signal victory, starvation and ruin stared them in the face.
The vessels seen.
The officers met together in anxious consultation. Just then the sun rose brilliantly, and revealed the vessels but a few miles distant, sailing before a fair wind toward Pequot Harbor. These strange men, of cast-iron mould, gave expression to their joy, not in huzzas, but in prayers and thanksgivings. But in the midst of this joy their attention was arrested by another spectacle. Three hundred Pequots, like a pack of tumultuous, howling wolves, came rushing along from the other fort. They had heard the guns and seen the flames, and were hurrying to the rescue.
Attack from the Indians.
As soon as the savages came in sight of the fort, and saw its utter destruction, they stopped a moment, as if aghast with rage and despair. They howled and tore out their hair, and, by their phrensied gestures, appeared to be in a delirium of fury. They then made a simultaneous rush upon the English, resolved to take revenge at whatever sacrifice of their own lives. There were now but forty-four Englishmen in a condition to fight. Three hundred savages—seven to one—rushed upon them in demoniac rage. But European weapons, and the courage and discipline of civilized life, were equal to the emergency.
Valor of the English.
Captain Mason promptly led forward a body of chosen men, who gave the savages so warm a reception as to check their advance and cause them to recoil. These intrepid colonists, with cool, unerring aim, wasted not a bullet. Every report of the musket was the death of an Indian. The savages, thus repulsed, took refuge behind trees and rocks, and with great bravery pressed and harassed the English with every missile of savage warfare. A rear-guard was now appointed, under Captain Underhill, which kept the savages at a distance, while the whole party marched slowly toward the vessels, which were now entering Pequot Harbor.
Desertion of the Narragansets.
Retreat of the English.
Several of the English had been slain. Five were so severely wounded that they were utterly helpless, and had to be carried in the arms of their friends. Twenty others were also so disabled that, though they could with difficulty hobble along, they were unable to bear the burden of their own weapons. Nearly all the Narraganset Indians had now abandoned the English, and, with cowardice which it is difficult to explain, had retired precipitately through the woods to their own country. But the Mohegans had no place of refuge; their only safety was in clinging to the English. Captain Mason, that he might avail himself of the energies of all his men who were able to fight, employed these panic-stricken and impotent allies in carrying the wounded, four taking in their arms one man. The Indians also bore the weapons of those who were too weak to carry them themselves. In this way the colonists marched in an uninterrupted battle for several miles to their vessels. The Pequots pressed them closely, assailing them with great fierceness and bravery, sending parties in advance to form ambushes in the thickets, and shooting their barbed and poisoned arrows from behind every rock and tree. At last the colonists reached the water's side in safety, and the Pequots, with yells of rage, retired.