XXXIX.
As ceased the chief, a fierce smile lit the eyes
And curled the muscles of those men of blood;
They feared the number of their enemies;
This hope was cheering, and all answered—good!
All save stern Corbitant, whose visage is
Dark and portentous as a slumbering flood,
Whose silent bosom holds the imaged storm,
And seems the tempest that the skies deform.
XL.
Then rose each Keenomp, in his turn, and spake:
Each said his knife was sharp, his hands were strong;
But still such counsel as his chief might take
He should deem wise, and so advise his throng.
At length stern Corbitant did silence break;—
But first unloosened from its leathern thong
His scalping knife, and then a circle true
With its bare point upon the earth he drew.
XLI.
"So move the hunters," the grim sachem said,
Then near the centre made of scores a few;
"Here do the moose and deer the thickets thread
To certain death from them whose feet pursue;
Do not the Yengees thus around us spread?
Are we not hunted thus our forests through?
Will Haup's brave Sachem yield Awanux aid,
While weep the spirits of his kindred dead?"
XLII.
"Go! thou dark Corbitant!" the old chief cried,
"Unarmed, the stranger seeks our vacant land,—
Far from his friends would plant by Seekonk's tide,
His blood within the hollow of our hand.
