CHAPTER VII
CAPTURED
There had been no time to cry out, so quickly had he been overcome, and now the opportunity was past. A twisted cloth was thrust into his mouth and tied behind his head ere he could bring his astonished muscles to obey him. Then, although he heaved and fought, his efforts were vain. Three snarling, painted faces bent over him, a knife poised itself above his heart, and in a trice his arms were pinioned securely. Surprise had given place to wrath, and David panted and mouthed and kicked, glaring back at his captors madly. He was angry with himself as well as with them, mortified to think that he should have so easily fallen into their trap. Tears threatened his eyes and he had difficulty keeping them back. When they had him secure, leaving, however, his feet free, they lifted him up, and the one who had greeted him from the thicket spoke.
“You come, we no hurt. You no come, we kill.” He pressed the point of his knife gently against David’s throat. If he thought to see the lad flinch, he was mistaken. David moved no muscle. Only his eyes shot venom into the face of the savage. The Indian grunted and stepped back. “Good,” he said. “You come, no make kill.” One of the others had gone back into the swamp and now returned with a musket, two bows, and two quivers of gray-tipped arrows. The arrows settled for David the identity of his captors. They were, he reasoned, Wachoosett Indians, emissaries of the sachem Woosonametipom. What they meant to do with him he could not yet fathom. Handing the musket to the English-speaking Indian, the one who had fetched it turned his attention to the buckets and the three discussed them for a moment. David made out only an occasional word, for, while the language they used was undoubtedly Nipmuck, their guttural speech was different from the clear articulation and careful phrasing of Monapikot. Finally it was decided to take one of the buckets and leave the other, and the one who had proposed it, who seemed the oldest of the three, secured it with a rawhide thong to his girdle. As the bucket was made of oak with iron hoops and bail, it was no light burden. But its gratified possessor seemed not to mind its weight and even looked back regretfully at its companion left behind.
It was he who led the way. David went next, and at the rear came the Indian with the musket. For more than a mile they kept to the swamp land and woods, following first the dried bed of a runnel and later the foot of a long hill whose wooded summit stood dark against the yellow of the western sky. No word was spoken and scarcely a twig was snapped or a branch flicked by the savages. Had David’s plight been less unhappy, he might have enjoyed seeing with what ease and in what stealthy silence the leader made his cautious way through the underbrush. Branches parted and swept together again without a sound, and even the bucket swinging at his hip never once caught. The pace was not fast, but it never faltered, and to David, who had not the use of his arms to aid him, it was more rapid than he would have chosen. Once, catching a foot in a vine, he fell headlong, with much noise, unable to save himself, and was jerked rudely to his feet again by the Indian behind him, who growled at him in Nipmuck words he did not understand, but whose tenor was clear enough. Twilight settled and the forest became full of shadows. By this time, however, they had left the lowlands and were proceeding generally northwestward through open woods. David’s captors did not appear to be apprehensive of meeting any one, although it was evident that they wanted to get their prey well out of that part of the country before pursuit might be started. So far as the boy knew there lay no settlement for many miles in the direction they were taking, since the little village at Sudbury lay well to the west and the Concord settlement more to the east. For that matter, he reflected hopelessly, they might easily pass within a stone-throw of either place in the darkness without danger of being seen.
When an hour or more had passed, the woods ended and, in the starlit darkness, a broad meadow stretched for miles. Here and there lay the glimmer of water, and David knew that they had come to the edge of the Sudbury Marshes through which wound the Crooked River. A halt was called, and David’s gag was removed that he might eat the cracked raw corn that they fed him. At first his jaws were too stiff to move and his lips and tongue were numb, but presently he was able to chew the food and swallow it. No fire was lighted, and, when they had rested for a half-hour, they went on again. By thrusting his jaw out, David succeeded in having the gag replaced more loosely, although it still effectually prevented him from making any outcry. Across the meadow they went to the river, and there without hesitation they descended into the water and, since the stream was low, forded without being wet above their middles. Again they found woodland, and unerringly the elder of the three entered it and went on at his unfaltering pace. David kept close at his heels. The short halt had rested him, but walking with the hands tied behind one is difficult, and soon he began to lag. That was the signal for an ungentle prod from the Indian behind him and David increased his pace again. All sorts of plans for escape came to him only to be dismissed as impractical. Had he had the use of his hands, he might have attempted stepping aside and trusting to elude his captors in the blackness of the forest, but to try that under the conditions was useless. He would have blundered into trees and doubtless fallen before he had gone a dozen steps.
From the evenness of the path they trod he judged that they were on one of the main Indian trails leading from the coast inland. These were well-trod paths over which one might easily ride on horseback, as the settlers had discovered. But they were far from level as often leading over a hill as around it, and the boy’s body was presently sore and his lungs hot and dry. He thought they must have covered a good twelve miles, and was convinced that he could go but a little way farther. The proddings at his back came frequently now, and he was bidden “quog quosh!” or “more fast!” But even threats failed at last and David stumbled and sank to the ground and closed his eyes deliciously. Again they raised him, the one in command striking him harshly with the butt of his musket. David felt the blow, but was dead to the pain of it and toppled again to earth the instant they released him.
“You no sleep! You make hurry more fast. No can lie down. You walk-walk or me kill!”
“Matta,” muttered David. “Naut seam.” (“No, very tired.”)
“You want kill?” demanded the Indian angrily. “You want be dead, stay here all-time?”
David heard, but was too sleepy to answer. Something sharp pierced his doublet, under a shoulder, and he groaned. Again he was pulled to his feet and again they refused to bear him. After that he was only dimly aware of what went on, for his eyes would not stay open and sleep was ever just behind them. He heard his captors talking, although their voices seemed to come from a great distance. Then the voices dwindled and silence fell. David slept.
An hour later they waked him and pulled him to his feet. Still dazed with sleep, he remonstrated fretfully, and would not stand until again that sharp sting of a knife-point made him wince and come back to reality.
The Indian who spoke English was talking to him. “You plenty sleep, David man. You walk-walk. You no walk-walk we stick um knife very good!”
“Aye, I’ll walk. I’m rested now. What name you?”
“Sequanawah,” replied the Indian after a moment’s hesitation.
“You Wachoosett man?”
“You no talk. You make hurry,” was the gruff answer. “Quog quosh.”
On they went through the dark forest, now and then climbing across some bare hill-top where the starlight showed David the form of the Indian ahead and from where he could vaguely sense the wooded valleys below them. The cooler air of early morning blew in their faces at such times, bringing a shiver even as it refreshed. For some reason, probably because there was no longer any necessity, they had not replaced the gag in the boy’s mouth, and he was able to breathe freely and even to talk, although talking was quickly discouraged. Just before dawn another halt was made and the Indians again produced corn from their pouches and gave David a handful of it to munch. Only once had he had water, and now he was thirsty again and said so.
Sequanawah grunted. “You come,” he said.
David followed to where, some forty yards away from their resting-place, the Indian stooped in the half-darkness and scraped at the leaves under a giant birch. Then he leaned his head down to the basin he had formed and David heard him drink. When the boy had also had his fill of the cool but brackish water, he followed the Indian back, and on the way he asked wonderingly:
“How you know water there, Sequanawah?”
“Me smell um,” was the grave reply.
As David couldn’t see the Indian’s face, he was unable to say whether the latter was in earnest or not, and the matter ever remained a mystery to him. Sitting again, Sequanawah emptied a tiny bit of powder onto a flat stone, laid a few wisps of birch bark above it, and set fire with the flint of his musket. Then a half-dozen twigs were placed on the little blaze and the Indians carefully filled their pipes with tobacco and lighted them. After that there was no word uttered until the weed was smoked.
Then Sequanawah grunted: “Hub!” and the others arose.
“How much more walk?” asked David.
Sequanawah looked around at the clustering trees and up at the sky that now showed gray above them. “Pausochu,” he answered. (“A little way.”)
What was to happen to him when the journey was ended, David did not know, but he was weary through and through and almost any fate seemed preferable to further toiling up and down hills. He no longer doubted that his destination was the village of the Wachoosett Indians near the Lone Hill, which, he had gathered from Monapikot, was a very tall mountain standing quite by itself far from any English settlement. Whether Woosonametipom meant to kill him or put him to torture or merely hold him prisoner, time alone could reveal.
After another hour’s progress, they emerged from the forest in a meadow that lay about a fair-sized pond. The dawn was close at hand and near-by objects were plainly discernible. Sequanawah pointed a naked arm, and David, following with his gaze, made out dimly in the grayness a great hill that loomed before them less than a mile distant.
“Great Sachem Woosonametipom him live,” said the Indian. “Quog quosh!”
So forward they went, skirting the pond wherein the frogs were already talking to each other in deep voices, and came presently to more woods. The ground began to rise and somewhere ahead a dog barked. Others answered. They were on a well-trodden trail that wound upward through oaks and maples and tall, slim pines. Suddenly a clearing was before them, a wide plateau near the foot of the mountain. Many wigwams showed their tops above a rude palisade of logs and the smoke of early fires filled the air. The barking of dogs made a great din, and, as David’s captors paused at the edge of the woods, a door in the fort opened and several Indians, men and women, came through, and with them a dozen snarling, barking mongrels, and Sequanawah called something above the clamor and they went forward again toward the doorway.