484 A WARM RECEPTION,

not to defend themselves, fire excepted, as long as their ammuni-
tion lasted, though all the savages that were landed, which was
near fifty, were to attack them.

Having resolved upon this, they next considered whether they
should fire at the first two, or wait for the three, and so take the
middle party, by which the two and the five that followed would
be separated; and they resolved to let the two first pass by, unless
they should spy them in the tree, and come to attack them. The
two first savages also confirmed them in this regulation by turning
a little from them towards another part of the wood; but the three
and the five after them came forward directly to the tree, as if
they had known the Englishmen were there.

Seeing them come so straight towards them, they resolved to
take them in a line as they came; and as they resolved to fire but
one at a time, perhaps the first shot might hit them all three:
to which purpose the man who was to fire put three or four small
bullets into his piece, and having a fair loop-hole, as it were, from
a broken hole in the tree, he took a sure aim without being seen,
waiting till they were within about thirty yards of the tree, so that
he could not miss.

While they were thus waiting and the savages came on, they
plainly saw that one of the three was the runaway savage that had
escaped from them, and they both knew him distinctly, and re-
solved that, if possible, he should not escape though they should |
both fire; so the other stood ready with his piece that if he did
not drop at the first shot, he should be sure to have a second.

But the first was too good a marksman to miss his aim; for as
the savages kept near one another, a little behind in a line, in a
word, he fired and hit two of them directly. The foremost was
killed outright, being shot in the head; the second, which was
the runaway Indian, was shot through the body, and fell, but was
not quite dead; and the third had a little scratch in the shoulder,
perhaps by the same ball that went through the body of the second,
and being dreadfully frighted, though not much hurt, sat down
upon the ground, screaming and yelling in a hideous manner.

The five that were behind, more frighted with the noise than
sensible of the danger, stood still at first; for the woods made the