Page:Barbour--Metipoms Hostage.djvu/282

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266
METIPOM’S HOSTAGE

has joined forces with Philip. I am fain that all who have proven traitors to their promises of good behavior be punished, father, and yet many of the Wachoosett tribe have treated me kindly and it would grieve me to see ill come to them.”

“’Tis difficult in these times to pick the sheep from the goats, David,” replied his father gravely. “I doubt not many innocent will be punished with the guilty. I’ve heard tell that at the Plymouth Colony so incensed are our people against the Indians that ’tis enough to have a red skin to merit death. Even about Boston the people are strangely panic-stricken and accept without question all the stories, no matter how improbable, that come to them. Mr. Eliot’s Indians have come under suspicion and there is talk of removing them from the villages and holding them prisoners on some island in the harbor. It is said that some have proven false and taken the war-path with Philip. I do not know how true it be, but, on the other hand, a great many are fighting on our side, and methinks they so even the matter. Obid, howsomever, declares that those who have taken arms for the English do so but the better to betray us later. He has changed