"Do not be afraid," said Philip, reining in his horse and bending a triumphant look upon his forced guest. "You are safe here. Keep close to my side, and I will show you how hard it is to subjugate a brave people." Barbara drew her rein tight: this scene, so grandly beautiful, the passionate eloquence in her companion's look and voice, aroused all the enthusiasm of her nature. "Ride on; I will follow;" she said. With grave dignity, and curbing the heroic fire that burned in his eyes, the young man advanced into the clearing. Barbara followed, threading her way through crowds of armed warriors, some standing in groups, others sitting on the half-illuminated sward, while the edges of the forest swarmed with savage forms; for the multitude gathering into that spot had already overrun the open space, and was crowded back into the woods. Barbara drew up her horse on the margin of the lake, where she sat, like an equestrian statue, under the willows. Philip rode directly up the mound, and as the hoofs of his war-horse struck the rock at its summit, called out in a loud, ringing voice that penetrated every nook and corner of the encampment-- "Chiefs and warriors, Metacomet, the son of King Philip, has asked the people of his tribe to come hither that he may hold a talk with them. He is here." The young man's face and figure were thrown into splendid relief by the fire light. His dress, savage only where it could be made picturesque, gave kingly dignity to his presence. The eagle's plume, that proclaimed him chief, rose from a cap of crimson cloth, from under which his bright hair swept in curling waves. The horse stood motionless, his neck arched proudly, his wild eyes a-glow with animal fire. While Philip's voice was yet vibrating through those savage hearts, a line of warriors, laden down with arms, defiled out of some unseen path of the forest, and belted the mound in with a triple wall of braves, which bristled so thickly with pikes and bayonets that the men who bore them were almost invisible. As the fiery pine flamed skyward and flashed on this bristling steel, rank after rank of savages, concealed in the woods, pressed into the light, till the whole clearing was alive with Indians, some armed for the war-path, others bearing calumets, doubtful if they had been summoned from their hiding places in the forest to hold council or sound a war-whoop. But the whole multitude was ready for either, and a sea of dusky faces was uplifted to the young chief in stern attention. "If there lives a warrior who knew Philip when he was king and chief of the Pomperoags, let him step forth, look on this face and say if it is not his son who talks with you?" Thus the young Metacomet addressed the throng of savages as they swarmed in from the forest.