had an apparently miraculous effect. The strength of the dying chief returned to him, and, to the astonishment of all, he sat up and called for food, which he had not been able to swallow for several days. In a short time he was completely restored to health, and in his gratitude to his visitors he revealed to them the plot against the two colonies, adding that he had been urged to join in it himself, but had refused. He recommended the white men to return home without delay, and to defeat the plot against their people by slaying the ringleaders, whose names he gave at once.
Back again in their camp, Winslow and Hamden lost no time in laying the information of which they were possessed before their leaders, and it was at once resolved to send out a small party under Miles Standish, first to warn the colonists at Weymouth, and then to get the Indians named by Massasoit into their power.
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MILES STANDISH'S SWORD, POT, AND PLATTER—PRESERVED IN PILGRIM HALL, NEW PLYMOUTH.
With eight men—he refused to take more, lest his object should be guessed at by the natives—Miles Standish started on his hazardous enterprise in a little shallop, and went by sea to Weymouth, where he found the colonists in a terrible condition, scarcely able to subsist on the scanty supplies which were all they had brought with them, and subject to perpetual insults from the Indians, who appeared to be determined to get as much sport as possible out of them before the final blow was struck.
Having relieved the immediate necessities of his unlucky fellow-countrymen, and directed them to keep together as much as possible, Standish endeavored to open negotiations with the Indians, but they had lost all fear of the white men, and met his advances with ridicule. Seeing that it was absolutely necessary to make an example, although hitherto no blood had been shed by the
