Page:Barbour--Metipoms Hostage.djvu/75

Rh a convert to Christianity and a teacher  of it amongst his people. Besides being sachem, Waban likewise held the office of justice of the peace, and it was he who had a few years before written the laconic warrant for  the arrest of an offender named Jeremiah  Offscow: “To you big constable, quick you  catch um, strong you hold um, safe you bring  um afore me, Waban, justice peace.” David knew the sachem well and meant to visit  him before he left, but now he kept on to the  meeting-house wherein the school was held  on week-days and where the Reverend John  Eliot discoursed to the Indians, and, usually,  to a few English besides, on the Sabbath. The preacher lived when at the village in a small  chamber divided off from the attic above.

David found Pikot busy with another teacher inside the building, and seated himself within the door to wait. Some fourteen or fifteen pupils, the younger members of the  community, were at their lessons, and David  had perforce to own that they indeed behaved with more decorum than a like number of English would have. Now and then a sly glance of curiosity came David’s way  from a pair of dark eyes, but for the most  part his presence went unheeded. The In-