In a later scene he describes to his wife a vision he has had in the night. He relates it in a rich, subdued undertone, waxing intenser, and giving the hearer a mixed feeling of mysterious reverie and prophetic inspiration. "Nahmeokee, the power of dreams has been on me, and the shadows of things to be have passed before me. My heart is big with great thoughts. When I sleep, I think the knife is red in my hand and the scalp of the white man is streaming." Here he gave an additional height to his figure, a slight downward inclination to his head and eyes, dropped his left arm listlessly, and, while the two halves of his whole form were seen finely distinguished along the median line, with his right hand, extended to its fullest distance straight from the shoulder, grasped his bow, which stood perfectly erect from the ground. It was a posture of beautiful artistic precision and meaning, expressive of reflection with a quality of earnest listening in it, as if waiting for a reply. The words of Nahmeokee, not fitting his mood, slightly ruffled his temper, and then, with a crisp tone of voice which in its change of quality and accent was so unexpected that it was like a sudden sweep of the wind that rustles the dry leaves and hums through the wood, he said, "Yes, when our fires are no longer red in the high places of our fathers,--when the bones of our kindred make fruitful the fields the stranger has planted amid the ashes of our wigwams,--when we are hunted back like the wounded elk far towards the going down of the sun,--our hatchets broken, our bows unstrung, and our war-whoops hushed,--then will the stranger spare; for we shall be too small for his eye to see!" The controversy between the natives and the new settlers having reached a perilous height, the latter dispatch a messenger asking Metamora to meet them in council. Very angry, and deeming all talk useless, he yet concludes to go. Unannounced, abruptly, he makes his peremptory appearance amidst them. Settling strongly back on his right leg, his left advanced at ease with bent knee, his right side half presented, his face turned squarely towards them, he says, with Spartan curtness, and in a manner not insolent, and yet indescribably defiant, "You sent for me, and I have come." His action was so wonderfully expressive in speaking these few words that they became a popular phrase, circulating in the mouths of men in all parts of the country. The same result also followed in another and simpler scene. He had promised to meet the English at a certain time and place. They demanded of him, "Will you come?" By mere force of manner he gave an immense impressiveness to the simple reply, "Metamora cannot lie." The very boys in the streets were seen trying to imitate his posture and look, swelling their little throats to make the words sound big, as they repeated, "Metamora cannot lie."