ildings surrounded with a stockade established a very
defensible position, but here again neglect and suicidal folly stared
him in the face.

The settlers were dispersed in every direction: three had that very
morning gone to live among the Indians; many were roaming the woods and
shore in search of food; one poor fellow going to dig clams on the
previous day had stuck fast in the mud by reason of weakness, and though
the Indians stood upon the shore watching him with shouts of derisive
laughter, not one put out a hand to help him, and he perished miserably
at the flow of the tide.

The master of the Swan, stricken with the folly of strong drink, met all
Standish's expostulations with a fatuous laugh, and the declaration that
there was no danger,--no danger whatever; that he and the Indians were
such friends that he carried no arms, and never closed the gates of the
stockade; that all the stories reaching Plymouth were lies or blunders;
and that although they were short of provisions, and especially of
strong waters, they asked nothing more of the Plymouth people than some
fresh supplies to last until Sanders, the head of the colony, should
return from Monhegan on the coast of Maine, whither he had gone for
corn.

Leaving the drunken captain in disgust, Standish at once took the
command of the post upon himself, and dispatched Hobomok and two of the
settlers who came to place themselves under his orders, to bring in all
of the others whom they could reach, sending word that he would feed
them. Many of them, including Sanders' lieutenant named Manning, came at
the summons, and before night all who would were safe within the
stockade, and were served each man with a pint of shelled corn, all that
could be spared, for it was taken from the Pilgrims' stock of seed-corn.

Then in a brief and vigorous address Standish told the colonists why he
had come, and repeated to them the assurance given him by Hobomok that
the day but one after his arrival was the day fixed upon for the
massacre, the boats needing but the one day's work to complete them.
Furthermore, he assured them that he needed nor would accept any help
from them in his punishment of the savages, the danger and the
responsibility being no more than Plymouth could endure, and, as he
significantly added, "The savages were not like to flee before men who
had so often fled before them."

Hardly was the harangue ended when a Neponset bringing a few hastily
collecte