"My brother did not mean what he said when he asked that his enemy might be permitted to run away. Who, when he catches a wolf, says, 'Wolf, Indian set the trap only to see whether it would hold fast your legs. The wise hunter talks not so, but strikes the wolf on the head.'"
"Sassacus," said Joy, "this may not be. If you had caught Master Spikeman, by your own cunning, it might have been different; but it was the white girl and I who devised the scheme, and I told you where to place the ambuscade, which has been successful. Were you to murder this man, the guilt would rest more on Prudence and me than on you, whose savage and un-Christian notions may partly excuse so dreadful an act."
"My brother's heart is soft, like moss, but the heart of Sassacus is a stone. My brother must learn to harden his heart, and he shall soon behold a punishment becoming a great Sagamore. My brother thinks and feels like a Christian. Good! but he must let Sassacus feel like an Indian."
"Let him go," said Joy, "and he shall pay you store of wampompeag and colored cloth. Of what use can it be to you to put him to a horrid death?"
"Wampompeag and colored cloth are good, but Sassacus is a great chief, and they cannot make him forget an injury. Before the white men came, his ancestors punished and rewarded, and he will not surrender the prerogative of his family."
"By the bones of my father," swore the soldier, "I will not permit this cold-blooded murder. Hated I him ten-fold more than I do, I would defend his life at the hazard of my own. Where is my gun?" he demanded fiercely, seeking after it. "Who has dared to remove it?"
"Sassacus took it away, that his brother might do no mischief with it," said the Pequot.
"False Indian!" exclaimed the soldier, passionately; "call me not again your brother. I will have nothing to do with one whose promises cannot bind, and who loves revenge more than honor."
"Sassacus never breaks his word, but, if he did, it would be only imitating the white men. Would my brother speak to my prisoner, whom, at this moment, he loves more than the justice of an Indian?"
"Why should I speak to him, when I should hear only curses?"