the main ocean so soon as ever we come out." The Pequots refused
to believe him until the boat was actually under way and sailing
down the river; then at last they yielded, gave up the two
English girls, and received the seven Indians in return.

These two poor little girls reached Saybrook in a sad condition,
worn out and frightened. The Dutch sailors had kindly given them
their own linen jackets because the girls had lost most of their
clothes, and Lieutenant Gardiner paid ten pounds out of his own
purse for their redemption. The Indians seem, on the whole, to
have treated them well. They were saved from death at first by
the pity and intercession of Wincumbone, the same chieftain's
wife who once before had saved Thomas Hurlburt. She took care of
them, the girls said, and they told how "the Indians carried them
from place to place and showed them their forts and curious
wigwams and houses, and encouraged them to be merry." But they
could not be very merry, and the elder, who was sixteen, said
that she slipped "behind the rocks and under the trees" as often
as she could to pray God to send them help. The Dutch governor
was so much interested in their story that he sent for the girls
to come to New Amsterdam (later New York), that he might see them
and hear them tell of their adventures. At last, after all these
journeyings, they were sent back safely to their homes in
Wethersfield.

Soon after this, Captain Mason and his company set out from
Saybrook on their expedition against the Pequots. After burning
the Indian fort at Mystic, in which many women and children lost
their lives, and killing several hundred Pequot warriors, they
returned victorious. They reached the bank of the Connecticut