University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

We will now return to our wounded hero, who, being supposed
to be slain and consequently abandoned by his company,
had so singularly fallen into the hands of the mysterious stranger,
whom the reader has doubtless already identified with
the hunted, unknown man, who, passing by the name of
Crocker, was rescued by King Philip from assassins at the
Leonard establishment, as described in a former chapter.

On recovering his consciousness, Captain Willis found himself
lying on bearskins, underlaid with boughs, in a small
wigwam, which proved to be one of a scattered group of temporary
huts erected and occupied by the Indians, while preparing
the more permanent abodes on the island but a few
hundred yards distant. The closely interweaving limbs of the
thick, dark, evergreen trees above, had almost solely shut out
the storm that was howling abroad over the night-shrouded
wilderness. The uproar of the battle and the conflagration
was all hushed: and the place seemed one of comparative comfort
and quietude. A bright fire, over which a small kettle of
venison broth was simmering, was blazing near the feet of the
wounded captive, if so he might be called; and his captor was
anxiously bending over him, examining and dressing his

wounds, some of which were found to be deep and dangerous.
Perceiving his patient's return to his senses, and noticing his
bewildered, uneasy looks, attended with indications of attempting
to rise, the stranger made a quick, forbidding gesture, and
said,

“Be calm and content. You are in safe hands. By claiming
you as my prisoner, whom I would save for a ransom, I
am permitted to do with you as I please, without question or
interference.”

“Well, I am in your power,” feebly responded the other,
pausing and starting as if in doubt whether the weak, hollow,
sounds he was uttering, could be his own voice—“Yes, I recall
it all, now. I am wounded, and very weak, and doubtless at
your disposal whatever your intentions. But first tell me
where I am.”

“Within a furlong of the sad scene of this day's butcheries,
which needed not the glow of the conflagration to make the
heavens blush for the deeds of a self-dubbed Christian
colony.”

“You speak plainly, sir; and would to God I could gainsay
you—at least so far as relates to that revolting onslaught
on the women and children. But I hear no firing—where are
the conquering army now?”

“Gone—wholly gone. The warriors, more than half of
whom had survived the fight and escaped unperceived, quickly
arranged themselves along the borders of the thickets on this
side the moat, and as soon as the smoke scattered, poured
such a continued and destructive fire on the now unprotected
and plainly seen troops, that they shortly were compelled to
evacuate the island and beat a final retreat.”

“It has resulted, then, as I feared, when I remonstrated
against setting fire to the village. But what sufferings must
ensue before those exhausted troops can reach the settlement,

over their dark and snow-drifted rout, in such a night of cold
and storm as this!”

“Aye, well may you be dubious about their fate. The unwounded
may possibly reach their destination; but most of
the wounded must inevitably perish. And fortunate it was
for you, sir, that I bore you here as I did; for even had you
been found and taken by your comrades from the field, you
could never, in your condition, have reached the settlement
alive.”

“It may be so. At all events, I will not repine at the
misfortunes which brought me here, nor what Providence may
still have in store for me. And who ever you may be, and
whatever your motives and intentions—hark!—what is that?
—what wild outbreak is that? Is it the herald of a renewed
conflict?” added the speaker, as a loud, shrill, prolonged cry of
mingling voices, so wild, so unearthly, and at the same time
so mournful, as to cause, for the moment, both captive and
captor to shrink back appalled, sent its deep vibrating thrill
far back into the dark recesses of the forest.

“No,” replied Crocker, after a pause; “that is no battle
cry. It is the funeral wail of the Indians over their collected
dead. They, on learning from the scouts sent out for the
purpose, that the white forces were in full and eager retreat,
all went over to the island to extinguish the fires of such wigwams
as might be partially saved, to rescue what corn they
might from the burning store-houses, and to see to their dead
and wounded.”

The wounded officer was about to push his inquiries, when
the other, glancing at his pallid face and trembling lips, motioned
to him to desist, and said:—

“These things are exciting you, I perceive. You must
keep entirely quiet. I have in readiness here some warm
broth for your nourishment. Take it, and sleep as much as
the pain of your wounds will let you.”

So saying, Crocker, producing from a corner of the hut
a small wooden bowl, filled it with the smoking beverage, administered
it with all the tenderness of an experienced nurse
to the acquiescing invalid, and carefully adjusting his bed and
covering, silently took his post as a watcher by his side. In
a few minutes, the exhausted invalid had sunk into a quiet
and profound slumber, when his anxious nurse and protector
carefully rose, put the fire in a condition so that it could not
endanger the cabin or its helpless occupant, and then noiselessly
stole away to the island, to see what was there transpiring,
which it might particularly concern him to know.

On reaching the scene of action, he at once and unhesitatingly
mingled among the gloomy and deeply excited throng;
when, on looking around, he was surprised to see how much
had been effected in the two short hours which, at most, had
elapsed since the evacuation of the place. The fires had been
effectually extinguished on a large number of the more solidly
constructed wigwams, and their log walls, though mostly
charred over, were yet left so entire as to be easily made habitable
by throwing across them the temporary roofing of poles
and boughs, which the neighboring swamps so abundantly supplied.
Large quantities of corn, secured in barrel shaped
cuts of hollow logs, had been hauled out from the protecting
debris, under which they had been buried by the falling of
the burning roofs of the store-houses; while nearly twenty of
the cabins, which, scattered along next the palisades on the
west side of the enclosure, had stood without the range of the
wind-driven flames, were left entirely uninjured.

Into these the wounded had been brought, and placed under
the care of the women and medicine men. The slain whites,
wherever found, had been unceremoniously pitched into the
moat—their own dead carefully collected, the funeral wail,
already described, uttered over them, and the bodies buried
in long trenches hastily excavated in the open space at the

southern extremity of the island. And the surviving warriors
were now assembled in the light of the still burning piles on
the very spot which had been marked by the fiercest of the
fight, to hold a grand council for deliberating on the gloomy
aspect of their affairs, and deciding what action should be
taken, immediately or remotely, to avenge their terrible misfortunes
and save the remnant of their bleeding and shattered
nation from entire destruction.

Conspicuous among the dark throng of the excited warriors
stood, like Saul among the people, with towering form
and flashing eye, the brave and chivalrous youthful chieftain,
Nanuntenoo, or Canonchet, as he is more often called in history,
who, though he had not, till now, broken from the leading
strings of the aged king and his advisers, whose timid
counsels were, at this period, paralizing the energies of this
warlike nation, yet he was the acknowledged heir apparent to
the throne, and had that day led on the willing warriors in
the terrible conflict which had just so disastrously terminated.
Near him was also the ambitious Quinnapin, introduced to the
reader in the early part of our story as the suitor of the fiery
Queen Wetamoo, who now stood here by his side, as his bride
and guiding genius, mingling in the counsels of state and inciting
him to action in avenging her wrongs, and those which
had been this day inflicted on his own people.

And around these leading personages, were closely grouped
many other noted sachems and war captains of the younger
and more ardent class, who sympathized with their bold and
independent young chieftain, in his secret feelings of hostility
towards the colonists; while a little aloof, with eyes bent
dejectedly on the ground, stood the bowed forms of the old
sovereign chief and the scarcely less aged counselors by whom
he kept himself surrounded. The whole assembly were evidently
agitated with emotions which, with all the wondrous
self-control of their race, they were not able wholly to sup

press. For though these laboring emotions might manifest
themselves in the old, only in the silent working of their features,
or in their sullen looks of grief and despair; yet, in all
the rest, with the withering scowl of hate, that was depicted
on their dark, frowning countenances, the loud gnashings of
teeth, the hot puffs of fiercely ejected breath, and the sharp,
prolonged, serpent-like hisses that ever and anon were bursting
forth from the fires of their pent wrath, everywhere gave
palpable indication of the terrible intensity of their feelings,
now all merged in the one great, overmastering, burning lust
for vengeance.

The old chief and several of his counselors had spoken;
but their speeches had been all of the same subdued and abject
character, all recounting the disastrous extent of their
losses, tremblingly deprecating the power and vengeance of
the white men, and suggesting no other hope, remedy, or resort
for them, but an immediate suing for peace. And the
eyes of the warriors were now all anxiously turned upon the
last hope of their tribe, the gallant Nanuntenoo, to hear his
response to remarks that so illy accorded with the thoughts
and desires by which their own fiery spirits were agitated.

After a pause, and a proud glance round upon the eagerly
expectant warriors, he spoke, and thus he spoke:—

“Ninigret, our venerable Sagamore, counsels submission
and peace! These are not the words of the brave Ninigret,
who, thirty years ago, drove back the pale faces, then coming
to help our old enemies, the traitor Moheags—drove them
back, like trembling deer, to hide themselves from his wrath,
in their sea-shore villages.[1] No, the Ninigret of to-day is old
and feeble. His courage is gone with his strength. He is
like a little child: and all his counsels are those of a child,
and not those of a man and a warrior, who would preserve the

being, and uphold the ancient glory of his nation. Submission!
Where would he and his counselors now be? where
the women and children not already burnt or brained, and
where all of us, if we had followed the same puling counsels
of peace and submission, which he gave us on the approach
of our murderous foes this morning? Aye, where? All in
yonder red graves, sleeping side by side with our slain warriors,
whose blood I already hear crying up to the great Manitou
for vengeance! And if Manitou hears, shall his outraged
red people be deaf to the cry? Brothers, hear me—if
a thousand warriors should now take the war path, follow,
ambush, and fall on the retreating foe, tired, freezing, and
staggering blindly along their dark and snowy way, need one
be left to carry home the story of their triumphs to-day? Not
one! Then would our dead brothers be nobly avenged.
Warriors, I am ready to lead all who are ready to follow.”

Hundreds of young warriors, with heaving bosoms and
flashing eyes, eagerly rushed forward to offer themselves for
the hazardous enterprise which had been thus artfully presented
to their gloating visions of blood and revenge, and
which, had it been permitted to be carried out, would, in all
human probability, have resulted in the entire destruction of
the already twice decimated colonial army. The burning
Wetamoo clapped her hands in savage delight, and, while uttering
wild exclamations in applause of the braves who were
thus evincing their patriotism, impatiently urged, and even
absolutely pushed forward her new husband, the less ardent
Quinnapin, who, thus instigated, soon took his place as one
of the leaders in the bold foray under consideration. And
everything, for the moment, promised a prompt and general
adoption of the plan suggested by the daring young chieftain.

But here the old chief and his counselors, at length comprehending
the character of the movement, came tottering

forward and warmly interposed to prevent its execution. At
first, in authoritative tones, they wholly forbid the movement
as one of folly and madness, and as one which would result
in the certain destruction of all who would engage in it. But
perceiving symptoms of open rebellion among the irritated
warriors, the trembling old chief lowered his tone, and, in
tearful agitation, earnestly pleaded and begged, that the warriors,
now the last hope and dependence of their shattered
tribe, might not be further exposed to the terrible power of
the white troops, but all be kept there for the defence of the
helpless. And finding the young chief and the leading warriors
still hesitating to comply with his entreaties, and urged
on by his overpowering fears and anxieties, he at last came
out with the humbling proposition, that if this, his last
request, was complied with, he would ask no other favor, but
at once resign the sovereign power into the hands of such
chief as the warriors, in their wisdom, might elect to receive
it.

The young chieftain, who, in the meantime, had stood
silently noting this interference, with feelings of impatience
and vexation, which nothing but his habitual respect for the
aged ruler prevented from breaking out in expressions of
open contempt and defiance, again looked anxiously round
upon the faces of the assembled warriors, when perceiving in
their looks indications of the irresolution and doubts, which
the words of those, whom they had so long been accustomed
to honor and obey, had obviously created in their minds, and
which, when indulged in, he well knew to be generally any
thing but an angury of success, he paused awhile with looks
of evident chagrin and disappointment, and then reluctantly
yielded his purpose.

“Ninigret has his wish,” he, after a pause, slowly began.
“Yes, Ninigret has his wish, and Nanuntenoo yields, because
he is to yield no more. But warriors,” he continued in

kindling tones, as he raised his princely form to its full height,
and threw a proud glance on the agitated throng around him—
“Warriors, from this sad and humbling day, we are free to
act and free to fight. Choose ye now, then, the man ye
would have for your sovereign and war-chief.”

“Nanuntenoo! none but Nanuntenoo! Nanuntenoo! Nanuntenoo!”
burst in one universal shout from the eagerly
acclaiming multitude; and the young chieftain stood before
them a king confessed.

“Warriors!” at length resumed the chieftain with a stern dignity
of manner alike suited to his new position, and the fearful
responsibilities he had unalterably resolved to assume in the
war—“Warriors, you have this day suffered an outrage which
can be atoned for only by the hearts' blood of our foes. The
lying pale faces say they have made war upon us because we
have received the houseless and starving Wampanoog women,
children, and feeble old men, whom they have driven from
their homes. Is there a warrior, or a man, or even a squaw in
the whole Narraganset nation, so mean and craven but he
would do this again?”

A yell of wrath fiercely burst from the exasperated throng
in negative response.

“Warriors,” continued the gratified chieftain, “your answer
is the answer of men who cannot be made slaves or cowards—
it is an answer that will fall pleasantly on the ears of our dead
braves in their spirit-land homes; and it is the answer the
Great Manitou, who is growing more and more angry over our
wrongs, would give us. Yield up to be butchered these helpless
Wampanoogs? Never! while a warrior among us is left to
wield a tomahawk, never! not one! not so much as even the paring
of a Wampanoog's toe nail shall ever be given up to the white
wolves![2] But is that all there for us to do? No! no! a

hundred times no! They have made war upon us with a bad
cause. We will now show them, in turn, what we can do in a
war against them with a good cause. They have destroyed
nearly half our warriors; but we will make the other half
more terrible for them, than the whole of them before. They
have not spared from death our women and children. We
will make the land red with the blood of theirs. To-morrow
we will begin to fill our bullet bags and sharpen our knives
and tomahawks for the bloody work; and before seven suns
have passed over us, we will be on our way to the camp of the
great Metacom, with the war cry of vengeance on our lips,
vengeance to the white man now, and vengeance to the white
man forever!”

And “Vengeance to the white man!” was eagerly caught up by
the maddened throng, and echoed and re-echoed, till the
whole forest rang with the clamor of the terrific demonstration,
which, at length subsiding, left on the startled ear the
shrill voice of the still unsatisfied Wetamoo, wildly repeating,
“Vengeance to the white man! vengeance now! vengeance forever!”

Thus ended the closing scene of this day's awful drama.
And how far the fearful foreshadowing of evil to the colonies
which that wild scene had so palpably exhibited were destined
to be realized, or in other words, how much this worse than
questionable onslaught on a tribe against whom they had no
just cause of war was destined to avail the cause of the colonists,
let the record of the dozen towns that were desolated,
of the five hundred dwelling-houses that were burned, and of
the fate of hundreds of men, women, and children, who were
slain in battle or massacred at their homes, during the terrible
winter that ensued—let the record of these furnish the
answer, and at the same time, the lasting commentary on the

whole of that unwashed transaction. We must leave it all to
the sad and humiliating history of the times, and return once
more to the task of unraveling the web of fate, which, in connection
with these public events, had involved the leading personages
of our eventful story.

“Oh, what an augury of evil to the infatuated colonists is
here!” soliloquized the white man, who having stood at the
edge of the crowd mutely witnessing the scene we have described,
now turned thoughtfully away, and began to retrace
his steps towards his charge in the forest—“Still, who can
blame them? Who can blame any, made of flesh and blood,
for resolving on such a course under such provocations? This
settles it beyond question or recall—a war now upon the colonies
by all the united red tribes of the north—ay, and that
too, a war of extermination! Yet why anticipate horrors
which heaven in its mercy may yet avert? It is enough for
me, in my situation, to look to my own safety—guard my own
interests. Aye, quite enough; since the forest no longer
will be any place for me. Let me bethink myself. Some
part of the Providence plantations—Cannonicut or Aquidneck
islands—yes, one of them must be my next refuge—at least
till it is seen how the approaching crisis in my affairs is to
turn; and the sooner I take myself away the better. But
this young officer, he must not be left here to perish in the
wilderness. No, I could not do that even were he a foe,
much less now. No, I must remain here with him, nurse
him, and, if possible, save him, and, as soon as he can bear to
be removed, take him away with me to some place of safety
to him and to me, if I would further commune with him.”

Thus anxiously musing, and giving vent to the thoughts
that were oppressing his mind, Crocker slowly made his way
back to his forest cabin, where his first care was to look to the
condition of his wounded protege. But noticing no alteration
in the latter, whom he found still sleeping quietly, he hauled

up a supply of already prepared fuel sufficient to last through
the cold and stormy night before them, replenished with solid
logs the low-burning fire, and wrapping closely around him
the warm, ample robe of furs with which he had provided
himself for the winter, laid carefully down by the side of his
sleeping patient, and was soon lost in slumber. After sleeping
soundly many hours, he was awakened by the invasion of the
cold—the woodman's only night signal for rising to prevent a
chill; when, leaving his rustic couch, he first closely noted
the brands of the decayed fire as his only means of judging
the time of the night, which he thus ascertained to be considerably
past midnight. Satisfying himself on this point, he
piled on another large quantity of substantial fuel, and then
went forth to examine the aspects of the weather, or whatever
might be passing without. The storm, which had greatly
lulled during the time occupied by the war-council, of which
he had been a spectator, in the fore part of the night, had
again set in with redoubled fury. The snow was sifting down
apace through the interstices of the loaded and bending boughs
of the trees overhead, and the wind was every where wailing
dismally through the muffled forests of the swamp levels
around, and sweeping, with loud, solemn roar, along the more
distant pine-clad hills bordering the swamp on the west. But
all else had given place to these voices of nature and of the
night. The tumult of battle, the roaring of flames, and the
cries of mortal agony, which had made hideous the past day,
were now all over and gone; and no human note was to be
heard, save an occasional stifled groan from some of the
wounded warriors who had been brought to these secluded
cabins, to die here, as they wished, alone and unmolested.
After noting awhile these tokens of the storm—made the more
impressive from the place and the hour, together with the
consciousness of the obstacles which such a fall of snow must
interpose to any immediate execution of his plans for leaving
the forest, he pensively returned to his post in the cabin, and
seating himself before the fire, fell into those dreamy reflections
which care and solitude are apt to create in the brooding
mind. He had not long, however, indulged in his reveries,
before he began to be conscious of an alteration in the breathing
of the invalid sleeper, which for some time had been
growing quicker and more labored. Instantly arousing himself,
he proceeded to the side of the latter, where he soon
noted symptoms that filled him with uneasiness and anxiety.
He ran out, squeezed together a quantity of the fresh snow
into a compact ball, returned, and assiduously applied himself
to the task of applying it alternately to the fevered brow and
parched lips. But as grateful as this cooling process appeared
to be to the half sleeping, half-waking, but nearly unconscious
sufferer, it did not seem in the least to affect the cause of his
sufferings. On the contrary, his symptoms, as the gloomy
night wore away, continued to grow more ominous and alarming.
More and more restless became every part of his
sympathizing system; faster and faster his hurried respirations,
and more and more perturbed his uneasy slumbers,
which at length were frequently broken by short, stifled
groans; while low, incoherent mutterings of the vaguely
flitting images of the troubled brain seemed constantly
striving forward to lips vainly attempting to give them utterance.
Deeply touched by the evident sufferings of his patient,
the sympathizing stranger, after doing all he could to alleviate
them—but all in vain—despairingly laid aside his appliances,
and bending over him with looks of commingled commiseration
and anxiety, began to listen to his disjointed murmurings
with melancholy interest; when at length, in the jumble of
his discordant, half-uttered thoughts and broken accents, the
words, “Madian—loved—lost—persecuted Madian,” became
distinctly articulate. Hastily starting at the sounds, the
listener rose and began to pace forward and backward along
the narrow space which the cabin floor now only afforded, with
rapid steps and visible emotion.

“It is so,” he at length said, pausing and looking down
sorrowfully on the face of the invalid—“it is so. The heart
is taking advantage of the clouded brain, to unburthen itself
of its most cherished secret, and the unconscious lips are but
doing its bidding. Yes, it is as I conjectured. And now to
see him lying here thus!—to see him here in this snow-hedged
wilderness, with his life hanging but by a thread, with no
possibility of any other than my poor surgery to save him! I
would that I could have been spared this painful lot—ay,
painful to witness and bear now, but to prove more painful, I
fear, in the associations of the future. But how singular this
happening! How singular the chance that brought me, in my
tardy retreat from witnessing the battle, upon that wounded
Pocasset, who could hail and entreat me with his dying breath
to slay this young officer, whose scalp, doubtless, at the very
moment he received his own death wound from some other
quarter, he was aiming to take, to bear it off as a trophy to
his queen, for her thanks and reward for destroying one whom
he doubtless had discovered to have been her most dangerous
enemy! Strange! But may there not be the finger of Providence
in all this? And yet, if the man is to die here, to
what end was the interposition? Will he live, then, to be
restored to his friends and country? God grant it! And as
for me, let me trust and believe it, as one more than willing
to become the instrument of the merciful purpose.”

And from that moment, he did trust and believe in the
event he had so earnestly prayed for; and thenceforward, and
by way of becoming, as he desired, the favored instrument of
its fulfillment, he patiently and assiduously devoted himself
to the duties of nurse, watcher and physician to his suffering
patient, with the best means of cure within his reach, which
consisted only of the balsams of the forest around him, for the

dressing of the wounds, snow or water for the alleviation of
the fever and local inflammation, and the various simples in
vogue for sudorifics and stimulants, all applied with the best
skill and discrimination, that his observations of Indian methods
of cure, and former experience among wounded men,
enabled him to exercise. But his faith in success was
destined to be severely tested. Day after day, and night after
night came and went, with no visible amendment of the sufferer.
The fever, in its varying degrees of intensity burned
steadily on, constantly disturbing his slumbers by night, and
as constantly keeping him by day in a state of stupor or mental
wandering. Still undiscouraged, however, by the unpromising
aspects of the case, this self-constituted protector and
physician continued to persevere in his unremitting attentions
to his patient, providing for his comforts, guarding him against
the cold, and nursing him with all the tender assiduity of
a father or brother, seeming to take no thought of himself, or
to regard the storms which were almost continually howling
through the wide-spread wilderness around, no further than
they might affect the comfort and safety of the object of his
unexplained and singularly bestowed solicitude. But faith,
hope, and patience, all at length flag under long continued
discouragements. And Crocker, finding that all his care and
exertions availed nothing, at last began to cast about him for
the best means of removing his patient to a white settlement,
believing the comforts of a civilized abode, and the attendance
of a regular physician, which could there be obtained, would
more than counterbalance the risks of removal, in the chances
of his recovery. Accordingly he called to his aid several of
the ingenious natives, who, as soon as they were made to comprehend
the object, went to work, and soon constructed a sort
of willow work litter or rather bed-case, which was confined
to light runners, so that a soft, springy bed could be laid
within, and the vehicle could be carried like a common litter
on the shoulders of men, or drawn like a sledge, as the circumstances
might require. And scarcely had these preparations
been made, before an event fortunately occurred that
afforded unexpected facilities for the safe accomplishment of
the projeeted removal. After nearly a fortnight of cold
stormy weather, one of those remarkable thaws, which are
peculiar only to January, but for the invariable occurrence of
which in that winter month, and not in any other, science
has yet failed to assign the cause, suddenly made its appearance.
And nearly the whole body of snow, then three feet
deep on the level, was, within two days, converted, as if by
magic, into its original element, leaving all the high grounds
as bare as in summer, and all the swamps and lowlands more
or less deeply flooded with water. Nothing was now wanting
but one cold night to make the way all that could be desired
for traveling in the contemplated direction, which led to the
nearest point of the neighboring bay, seven or eight miles
distant, and for the most part over a low swampy country.
Such a night followed the second day of the thaw; and the
next morning, the ice was everywhere found sufficiently strong
for a safe transit of the invalid and his attendants. As no
time was to be lost, Crocker immediately summoned the four
native assistants, whom he had previously hired for the purpose;
when, having dispatched one of them forward to a designated
point on the coast, to procure suitable boats, he with
the others gently lifted the unconscious officer into his new
traveling couch, carefully covered him with blankets and furs,
and at once set forth over the almost continuous glare ice
which now, spreading out far and wide in every direction
formed the smooth and beautiful flooring of the forest. Under
the judicious arrangements adopted, in accordance with which
one of the assistants went forward with a hatchet to lop away
all obstructing boughs, while the other two drew the vehicle,
leaving their leader to walk by its side, to steady, and guard
it from accidents, the party now for many hours diligently
made their way through the most densely wooded part of their
route. They then shortly emerged into a more open, marshy
region, where they encountered so few difficulties, and advanced
at such an increased pace, that at the end of six
hours from the time of starting, they had safely reached their
destination at the end of their journey by land.

The place at which they had now arrived was the most inward
point of the large, irregular cove, here making some
miles into the interior from the great western entrance of the
bay. Here they found the Indian who had been sent forward
in the morning, in charge of two safe and capacious bark
canoes, which he had drawn out from a neighboring shanty,
where the Narragansets, it appeared, had deposited their
boats for the winter, and which he had already caulked,
launched, and every way made ready for immediate occupancy.
Placing the invalid, litter and all, in the largest canoe,
the whole party at once embarked, Crocker and one of
his assistants taking charge of the boat containing the invalid,
and the rest going forward in the other to assist by towing,
and in any other way which circumstances might require.

The keen cold of the morning had now, in the afternoon,
given place to a mild winter atmosphere, and what was still
more important to a favorable issue of the enterprise in hand,
the day throughout had been one of perfect calmness. And
the waters of the bay, the ice of which, including even that
of the cove, had been broken up and dissolved by thaw and
tide, were consequently almost entirely waveless. Encouraged
by these auspices, the hitherto anxious and fearful master of
the expedition, with a few cautions to the rowers to guard
against all sudden and jerking motions, confidently put forth
on this part of the voyage. And so great was the speed with
which these light, feathery crafts were made to skim the surface,
under the elastic, steadily applied oars of the strong-armed

rowers, that one half hour sufficed to take them out
into the open waters of the bay, and another to send them
across the channel to the southern point of Canoncut Island.
Here, closely rounding the point, they veered to the northeast,
and after skirting this island several miles, struck obliquely
across the middle channel, and at length made land in
the vicinity of a solitary but neat-looking farm-house standing on
the western shore of the picturesque Aquidneck, or the well
known Rhode Island, which subsequently gave the name to
the whole of the free born and spirited little State, which
here lies nestling within and around these curiously projecting
arms of what may well be termed its fostering ocean.