Two old medicine-men came out of the ranks and passed through a lane of bayonets crowded back to give them free passage. They went close up to Philip, and, shading their eyes from the hot light, searched his face with keen glances. They fell back satisfied, and, so far as their feeble voices could reach, the savages heard this curt decision: "His face does not lie." Here a low shout, or rather groan, of approval, ran through those savage ranks and died away in the forest. Again Metacomet turned to the crowd. "Warriors, I have come back from across the great waters with the heart of King Philip beating loud in my bosom. He died fighting for his people. So will I, or set them free, with broader hunting-grounds than they ever trod, and richer cornfields than their enemies have learned to plant. When King Philip died, his enemies laughed, like cowards, for they knew that a great warrior had fallen, such as will never tread their cornfields, though they plant them over our fathers' graves ten thousand years. When he fell, the Pomperoags were a conquered people, not from lack of bravery, but because the white man's cunning was more powerful than the strong arms of all our warriors, with the bravest man that ever lived at their head. "Warriors, your king, betrayed by a traitor, hunted down like a wild beast, was murdered. His son seized the rifle as it fell from his hand and sent its last bullet through the brain of a white soldier, who attempted to drag him away from his dying father. When he was disarmed, bleeding, desperate, they seized upon him. Warriors, I see by the fire in those eyes and the grip of those hands that no one of you has forgotten that story. The captors of this wretched boy sold him into slavery. They chained his limbs and gave him over to the lash--sent him under the hot sun to work like a beast of burden. He did work and he suffered, but slavery never reached the soul of Metacomet--that forever turned back to his people. Still he must have died like a brute beast, worn out with toil, but for the woman who sits yonder with her face turned this way in wonder at what she sees. She came to the island where he toiled under the lash, and saw how wretched he was. With her gold she broke his chains. With her smiles she cured his wounded heart. She taught him how to think, and out of that came a power which turned thought into a great purpose, which has never left his brain a moment from that day to this. "He went across the great waters, and learned all the cunning secrets with which our enemies conquered the red man. He searched out the wonderful power which conquers without fighting. He learned that knowledge is more powerful than the tomahawk, and swifter than a rifle bullet. He learned that white men cut eagle plumes into pens, and with their sharp points send out thoughts like arrows, striking whole tribes at once.