"We have called thee, Samoset," said Winthrop, "to interpret between us and this prisoner. Ask him if he acknowledges himself to be the famous chief of the Pequots."
"Tell him," replied Sassacus, "that I am that eagle at whose scream the Narraghansetts hide themselves like little birds in the bushes."
"A bold answer," said Winthrop. "Ask him now, wherefore he hath been lurking in the woods in the vicinity of our lodges."
"The feet of Sassacus," answered the chief, "tread upon the forest leaves at his pleasure. His ancestors never inquired of the Taranteens nor of the Narraghansetts where they should hunt, and he will not ask permission of the strangers with beards."
"Frank and defiant," muttered Endicott. "Come, I like this."
"The forests are very wide," said Winthrop, "and the game is not so abundant in our immediate neighborhood. There must be some more particular reason for thy conduct."
"Listen, O, white chief!" returned the Indian. "The path whereon the tongue of Sassacus travels is a straight path. A great chief disdains to tell a lie. Know then, that, for a long, long time—our oldest men cannot recollect so far back, for they heard the legend from their grandfathers, and they again from theirs—it hath been told among us, that a race with a skin like the snow should come to our land, with strange manners, and speaking a strange language; and when I heard of Owanux, I came to see whether they were the men, for it becomes a chief to watch for his people."
"And what said the tradition," asked Winthrop, "should be the fate of the two races?"
"Tell him not, O, Samoset! my friend, who hast eaten with me from the same pot—that the legend, sadder than the wail of warriors from an unsuccessful expedition over the dead; than the sobs of the wintry wind around the grave of my first-born—that, like the cloud in the full moon, we were to waste away, and the intruders to occupy our hunting grounds."
"He says," said Samoset, interpreting to suit the chief, "that the Indians were to drive the strangers, as the wind whirls the leaves into little heaps."