The English did not
dare to pursue him, fearing to venture into these dark and
frightful recesses, where they might perish in fens and miry pits
or be shot down by lurking foes. They therefore invested the
entrance to the Neck, and began to build a fort with the thought
of starving out the foe; but Philip and his warriors wafted
themselves on a raft over an arm of the sea in the dead of night,
leaving the women and children behind, and escaped away to the
westward, kindling the flames of war among the tribes of
Massachusetts and the Nipmuck country and threatening the colony
of Connecticut.
In this way Philip became a theme of universal apprehension. The
mystery in which he was enveloped exaggerated his real terrors.
He was an evil that walked in darkness, whose coming none could
foresee and against which none knew when to be on the alert. The
whole country abounded with rumors and alarms. Philip seemed
almost possessed of ubiquity, for in whatever part of the
widely-extended frontier an irruption from the forest took place,
Philip was said to be its leader. Many superstitious notions also
were circulated concerning him. He was said to deal in
necromancy, and to be attended by an old Indian witch or
prophetess, whom he consulted and who assisted him by her charms
and incantations.
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