There are two sharp knives there, hanging beneath the
bow and the quiver and the shield. Take them and hide them."
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before Diccon had the
two keen English blades. I took the one he offered me, and hid it in
my doublet.
"So we go armed, Nantauquas," I said. "Love and peace and
goodwill consort not with such toys."
"You may want them," he went on, with no change in his low,
measured tones. "If you see aught in the forest that you should not
see, if they think you know more than you are meant to know, then
those three, who have knives and tomahawks, are to kill you,
whom they believe unarmed."
"See aught that we should not see, know more than we are meant
to know?" I said. "To the point, friend."
"They will go slowly, too, through the forest to Jamestown,
stopping to eat and to sleep. For them there is no need to run like
the stag with the hunter behind him."
"Then we should make for Jamestown as for life," I said, "not
sleeping or eating or making pause?"
"Yea," he replied, "if you would not die, you and all your people."
In the silence of the hut the fire crackled, and the branches of the
trees outside, bent by the wind, made a grating sound against the
bark roof.
"How die?" I asked at last. "Speak out!"
"Die by the arrow and the tomahawk," he answered, - "yea, and by
the guns you have given the red men.
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