Upon getting word of King Philip's whereabouts, so near at hand, Captain Church kissed his wife goodby, and gladly mounted his horse again--hoping, he said, "by tomorrow morning to have the rogue's head." This night Alderman guided the captain's force truly. They had not far to go--only a dozen or so miles up the Mount Hope peninsula, to the narrow neck. The captain was well acquainted with the exact spot: a little isle of dry land in the midst of the swamp. On the morning of August 12 he had his men arranged silently. Captain Golding was given the "honor of beating up Philip's headquarters." With a picked party, crawling on their bellies, he entered, to surprise the little isle, and drive out the game. Throughout the swamp the other men were placed, two (a white man and an Indian) by two, behind trees, "that none might pass undiscovered." When the enemy should be started in flight, then all the attacking party were to make a great noise. Every figure moving without noise was to be fired upon by the ambuscade. There were not quite enough men to complete the circle of the ambuscade. However, Captain Church took his aide, Major Sanford, by the hand, and said: "Sir, I have so placed the men that it is scarce possible Philip should escape them." There was no thought of sparing King Philip's life. He was an outlaw. Just as the captain finished his hopeful speech, a gun-shot echoed through the misty gray. Captain Golding's men had come upon one Indian, and had fired, and then had poured a volley into the sleeping camp. Again from the harried band rose the cry "Awannux! Awannux! (English! English!)" and into the swamp they plunged. Caleb Cook and Alderman the guide had been stationed together behind a tree. At the first gun-shot, says the Captain Church story, King Philip "threw his petunk (shot pouch) and powder-horn over his head, catched up his gun, and ran as fast as he could scamper, without any more clothes than his small-breeches and stockings." And here he came, directly for the tree. The two behind it let him come "fair within shot." Then Caleb took the first fire upon him. But the gun only flashed in the pan. He bade the Indian fire away, and Alderman did so true to purpose; sent one musket bullet through King Philip's heart, and another not above two inches from it. The gun had been loaded with two balls. King Philip "fell upon his face in the mud and the water, with his gun under him." He was dead, at last, on the soil of his long-time home land from which he had sallied to do battle in vain.