“My brother knows not that they are owls who fly in the night.  The eyes of Sassacus can pierce the skin on the bosoms of his enemies, and he saw in them men wandering in the dark, and looking for the chief of the Pequots.”

“But how are these strangers to find the way?”

“When did Sassacus ever make a secret of his lodge?  He is not a beaver, or a wretched wood-chuck, to burrow in the ground, but an eagle who makes his nest on the highest trees.”

From this reply Arundel could only understand, that the place where the hut stood was too well known to make it difficult for the Indians to discover it.  There was no knowing what their audacity, thirst for revenge for the insult, and the opportunity to capture or destroy so famous an enemy, might tempt them to undertake; but he trusted that the want of a medium of communication (for only the Knight and Eliot, among the whites, as he supposed, could make themselves intelligible; and the Aberginians were not likely to approach the Taranteens) would be an insuperable obstacle in the way of their purpose, should they entertain any such as that intimated by his companion.  It was evident, however, that Sassacus expected an attack during the night, and that so far from shunning the danger, he rather courted it; for it was easily to be avoided, by leaving the wigwam to its fate.  There would not be much loss in that, the cabin being rudely built of bark:  and the few articles of value which it contained might, in a short time, be removed to a place of safety.  Arundel could scarcely be expected to participate in the feelings of the wild warrior in the contemplation of a fight with savages in the dark.  Besides, he knew not by how many they might be attacked; and the prospect of a contest betwixt himself and Sassacus, on the one side, and half-a-dozen or more Taranteens, on the other, may well be conceived to have had in it nothing alluring.  He would not, however, desert his friend; and, despairing of changing the chief’s resolution, he walked in silence after him, turning over in his mind the possibilities of a night skirmish.  Sassacus had, probably, an idea of his thoughts, for presently he resumed his attempt to dissuade Arundel from accompanying him.

“My brother,” he said, “has no quarrel with the Taranteens.  They have come to smoke the calumet with his people, and not to plunder his villages and burn his corn fields.  Why should my brother expose his life?”

It was partly to try the courage of the young man, perhaps, and partly to ascertain how far he might be depended on, if there should be a fight, that the Indian asked the question.  At any rate, a suspicion of the kind passed through Arundel’s mind, and he answered: 

“My life belongs to Sassacus.  It is no longer mine.”

“Sassacus gives his brother back his life.  Will he not now return to his big lodge, where he will hear no war-whoop, but only the pleasant song of the gues-ques-kes in the morning?”