The Indian resents this
act, and there seems to be resentment and fear among all the red
men. The Englishmen stiffen to attention, but Smith, who feared
neither man nor devil, goes among the Indians carrying a copper
kettle and a gorgeous blanket. He held out his blanket
persuasively and added several strings of beads. Then he draped
the blanket on himself. The Indian at last reluctantly yields
and takes off the skin, a beautiful black fox. The lights closed
in around a group of Indians decked in their new robes.
Our attention is turned toward the shore once more where three
English sailors hold a flag bearing the words: "Thomas Hunt -
Patuxet - 1615." Hunt enters stealthily at the right, and his
attention is concentrated upon a spot where his trained eye has
caught, a glimpse of something of greater interest than bird or
fish. He is evidently scouting. Then appear at his signal a band
of men moving in single file, who hide behind the bushes. Hunt
too, as if hearing something, hides himself. Silently a shadowy
procession moves from Town Brook, carrying pelts and fishing
apparatus. A canoe is borne on the shoulders of two of them.
They put the canoe down and all gather in a group to prepare for
the day's fishing.
All unconscious of danger, they lay their weapons aside. Hunt
rises and signals to his men, who quickly fall upon the Indians
as they try to flee. Several stagger across the field fatally
wounded, while most of the men are captured and bound. After
they gag the Indians they force them toward the water's edge
where a boat is waiting. As the group disappears, or is seen as
a band of faint shadows, the despairing figure of Tisquantum,
bound and struggling, is brought into relief.
There is darkness for a brief time then, as the lights come
slowly on, they reveal an absolutely empty space where before
were seen activity and plenty. The music for this scene,
composed by Henry F. Gilbert, was of a character at once weird,
awe-inspiring, almost magical, portraying by tone as plainly as
by words the scene of desolation, sickness and death. It seemed
as if there were an increasing sense of indefinite fear - a deep
impression of solemnity and gravity, as if we were conscious of
contact with the eternities.
A change as unusual as it was unwholesome came upon the ocean.
"As the lights touched the water a purple glow that was to it
like the ashen hue that beclouds the face of the dying. A filmy
green spread over the land and there seemed to arise a miasmatic
vapor like the breath of a brooding pestilence, which clung
clammily to the earth and dulled all life." Every one felt the
presence of trouble impending; one grave question breathed forth
from the haunting music and, unspoken, trembled on every lip;
one overmastering idea blended with and overpowered all others.
"The land and sea were both sick, stagnant, and foul, and there
seemed to arise from their unfathomable depths, drawn by the
weird power of the music, horrid shapes that glared steadily
into the strange twilight they had arisen to."
"Such a morbific, unwholesome condition" cast upon land and sea,
and music that seemed to breathe forth such despair and
desolation, could not but deeply move the audience.
