And not alone was the public mind agitated by fears of the Indians; other causes of terror prevailed. The aurora borealis lit up the midnight sky; the moon was eclipsed; strange and awful sights were seen in the heavens; Indian bows, and scalps and armies careering with lightning speed; the moaning of the wind and the howling of the wolves became also prophetic of dire calamity. The awe-stricken people thought of the “signs in the sun, and the moon, and the stars; and upon earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.” The approaching war, of which these signs were supposed to be the prognostics, caused the austere Puritans to consult through their elders as to the sins for which these calamities were the judgment; and a long list was drawn up, among others, “neglect in the religious training of their children; pride in dress; long and curled hair worn by the men; the uncovered bosoms of the women and the wearing of superfluous ribbons; toleration of the Quakers; hurry in leaving the meeting-houses; cursing, swearing and drinking; and the riding from town to town of unmarried men and women, on pretence of attending lectures”—these, and other such things, were considered to be the cause of God’s anger, and still greater austerity of life was required. Meantime, the Pocanokets driven from Mount Hope, Philip and his warriors were fugitives among the Nipmucks, a tribe in the interior of Massachusetts; the tribes in Connecticut remained faithful, and the Narragansetts were quiet; nevertheless, the colonists were on the alert, and in November a combined force of 1,500 men was raised to carry on the war against the Indians, which was now pronounced to be “just and necessary.” “The war on the part of the Indians,” says Bancroft, “was one of ambushes and surprises. They never once met the English in open field. They were secret as beasts of prey, skilful marksmen and in part provided with fire-arms, fleet of foot, conversant with all the paths of the forest, patient of fatigue and burning for vengeance on an enemy whom at the same time they feared and hated. By the rapidity of their descent, they seemed omnipresent among the scattered villages, which they ravaged like a passing storm. The forest that protected their ambush secured their retreat; they hung upon the skirts of the English villages ‘like the lightning on the edge of the cloud.’”