Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/53

 destroy me, my men shall be yours; if you fall, yours shall be mine."

The haughty king of the Narragansetts answered proudly,—

"My men came to fight, and they shall fight."

They fought and were defeated. The vanquished leader was taken prisoner by Uncas, who, contrary to the expectations of his followers, restrained that rage of vengeance, which savages rank among their virtues. He led his captive to Hartford, and delivered him to the justice of the Colony, submitting his personal resentment to the sanction of laws, which he acknowledged to be more wise than his own. They decreed his death, on account of many crimes, and restored the victim to his conqueror. Uncas returned with him to the spot where the battle was fought, and when the carnage, which Miantonimoh had caused, was before his eyes, an Indian executioner cleft his head with a hatchet. Uncas, having yielded so much to the forms of, justice, now testified some adherence to the savage customs of his country; which, if fully observed, would have demanded the torture of the criminal. Severing a piece of flesh from the shoulder of his lifeless enemy, he devoured it with expressions of triumph. The fallen monarch was then laid in a grave, over which a heap of stones was raised, and the spot, which is a short distance north-east of N, bears the name of Sachem's Plain to this day; as an Israelitish valley was denominated