This was another of the provocations which must have annoyed Philip. Hubbard states expressly, that Sassamon was importunately urged to forsake him; and it appears from other sources, that there had previously been such an entire confidence between the two, that the Secretary was intrusted with all the secrets of his master. The provocation went still farther. Sassamon, either having or pretending to have some occasion to go among the Pokanokets frequently, availed himself of this opportunity to scrutinize their movements, and to report them as he thought proper to the English. In consequence of this, Philip and some of his subjects were "examined," we are told, but nothing definite was learned from them. Soon after, Sassamon disappeared; and as he had expressed some well-founded fears of meeting with a violent death in the course of these manoeuvres, his friends were alarmed. They commenced, a search, and finally found his dead body in Assawomset pond, (in Middleborough) where a hole in the ice, through which he had been thrust, was still open, and his hat and gun left near by, as if he had drowned himself. "Furthermore," says Mather, "upon the jealousies of the spirits of men that he might have met with some foul play, a jury was empanelled, unto whom it appeared that his neck was broken, _which is one Indian way of murdering._" The next step of the Plymouth Government was to seize upon three Pokanoket Indians, on the testimony of a fourth, "_found,_" says Hubbard, "_by a strange providence._" This man swore that he had seen the murder committed from a hill near the pond. It must be inferred that he swore to the identity of the prisoners, for it appears they were convicted from "his undeniable testimony and other circumstances," [FN] and forthwith hanged. Whatever may be said of the _legal,_ the _moral_ probability certainly is, that they were guilty. They were probably appointed to execute the judgement of Philip upon Sassamon, one of them being Tobias, a man of some distinction. At all events, Philip must have thought himself justified in taking this summary measure with a vagabond who was mean enough to avail himself, as Sassamon did, of being tolerated in _his_ territory after having betrayed his confidence, and apparently for the very purpose of following up his own treason. * * * * * [FN] The Colonists were but too ready, throughout these transactions, to believe any thing and everything which supported a charge against Philip. One of the undeniable circumstances is, probably, stated by Mather. The dead body bled afresh, says the Doctor, on the approach of Tobias, "yea, upon the repetition of the experiment, it still happened so," albeit he had been deceased and interred for a considerable while before. CHAPTER VIII.