CHAPTER XXXVIII IN WHICH I GO UPON A QUEST
THROUGH a loophole in the gate of the palisade I looked, and saw thesandy neck joining the town to the main, and the deep and dark woodsbeyond, the fairy mantle giving invisibility to a host. Between us andthat refuge dead men lay here and there, stiff and stark, with the blackpaint upon them, and the colored feathers of their headdresses red orblue against the sand. One warrior, shot through the back, crawled likea wounded beetle to the forest. We let him go, for we cared not to wasteammunition upon him.
I drew back from my loophole, and held out my hand to the women for afreshly loaded musket. A quick murmur like the drawing of a breath camefrom our line. The Governor, standing near me, cast an anxious glancealong the stretch of wooden stakes that were neither so high nor sothick as they should have been. "I am new to this warfare, CaptainPercy," he said. "Do they think to use those logs that they carry asbattering rams?"
"As scaling ladders, your Honor," I replied. "It is on the cards that wemay have some sword play, after all."
"We'll take your advice, the next time we build a palisade, RalphPercy," muttered West on my other side. Mounting the breastwork thatwe had thrown up to shelter the women who were to load the muskets, hecoolly looked over the pales at the oncoming savages. "Wait until theypass the blasted pine, men!" he cried. "Then give them a hail of leadthat will beat them back to the Pamunkey!"
An arrow whistled by his ear; a second struck him on the shoulder, butpierced not his coat of mail. He came down from his dangerous post witha laugh.
"If the leader could be picked off"--I said. "It's a long shot, butthere's no harm in trying."
As I spoke I raised my gun to my shoulder; but he leaned across Rolfe,who stood between us, and plucked me by the sleeve. "You've not lookedat him closely. Look again."
I did as he told me, and lowered my musket. It was not for me to sendthat Indian leader to his account. Rolfe's lips tightened and a suddenpallor overspread his face. "Nantauquas?" he muttered in my ear, and Inodded yes.
The volley that we fired full into the ranks of our foe was deadly, andwe looked to see them turn and flee, as they had fled before. But thistime they were led by one who had been trained in English steadfastness.Broken for the moment, they rallied and came on yelling, bearing logs,thick branches of trees, oars tied together,--anything by whose helpthey could hope to surmount the palisade. We fired again, but they hadplanted their ladders. Before we could snatch the loaded muskets fromthe women a dozen painted figures appeared above the sharpened stakes. Amoment, and they and a score behind them had leaped down upon us.
It was no time now to skulk behind a palisade. At all hazards, that tidefrom the forest must be stemmed. Those that were amongst us we mightkill, but more were swarming after them, and from the neck came theexultant yelling of madly hurrying reinforcements.
We flung open the gates. I drove my sword through the heart of an Indianwho would have opposed me, and, calling for men to follow me, sprangforward. Perhaps thirty came at my call; together we made for theopening. A party of the savages in our midst interposed. We set uponthem with sword and musket butt, and though they fought like very devilsdrove them before us through the gateway. Behind us were wild clamor,the shrieking of women, the stern shouts of the English, the whooping ofthe savages; before us a rush that must be met and turned.
It was done. A moment's fierce fighting, then the Indians wavered,broke, and fled. Like sheep we drove them before us, across the neck,to the edge of the forest, into which they plunged. Into that ambushwe cared not to follow, but fell back to the palisade and the town,believing, and with reason, that the lesson had been taught. The stripof sand was strewn with the dead and the dying, but they belonged not tous. Our dead numbered but three, and we bore their bodies with us.
Within the palisade we found the English in sufficiently good case.Of the score or more Indians cut off by us from their mates and pennedwithin that death trap, half at least were already dead, run throughwith sword and pike, shot down with the muskets that there was now timeto load. The remainder, hemmed about, pressed against the wall, werefast meeting with a like fate. They stood no chance against us; we carednot to make prisoners of them; it was a slaughter, but they had takenthe initiative. They fought with the courage of despair, striving tospring in upon us, striking when they could with hatchet and knife,and through it all talking and laughing, making God knows what savageboasts, what taunts against the English, what references to the huntinggrounds to which they were going. They were brave men that we slew thatday.
At last there was left but the leader,--unharmed, unwounded, though timeand again he had striven to close with some one of us, to strike andto die striking with his fellows. Behind him was the wall: of the halfcircle which he faced well-nigh all were old soldiers and servants ofthe colony, gentlemen none of whom had come in later than Dale,--Rolfe,West, Wynne, and others. We were swordsmen all. When in his desperationhe would have thrown himself upon us, we contented ourselves withkeeping him at sword's length, and at last West sent the knife inthe dark hand whirling over the palisade. Some one had shouted to themusketeers to spare him.
When he saw that he stood alone, he stepped back against the wall, drewhimself up to his full height, and folded his arms. Perhaps he thoughtthat we would shoot him down then and there; perhaps he saw himself acaptive amongst us, a show for the idle and for the strangers that theships brought in.
The din had ceased, and we the living, the victors, stood and looked atthe vanquished dead at our feet, and at the dead beyond the gates, andat the neck upon which was no living foe, and at the blue sky bendingover all. Our hearts told us, and told us truly, that the lesson hadbeen taught, that no more forever need we at Jamestown fear an Indianattack. And then we looked at him whose life we had spared.
He opposed our gaze with his folded arms and his head held high and hisback against the wall. Many of us could remember him, a proud, shy lad,coming for the first time from the forest with his sister to see theEnglish village and its wonders. For idleness we had set him in ourmidst that summer day, long ago, on the green by the fort, and hadcalled him "your royal highness," laughing at the quickness of our wit,and admiring the spirit and bearing of the lad and the promise he gaveof a splendid manhood. And all knew the tale I had brought the nightbefore.
Slowly, as one man, and with no spoken word, we fell back, the halfcircle straightening into a line and leaving a clear pathway to the opengates. The wind had ceased to blow, I remember, and a sunny stillnesslay upon the sand, and the rough-hewn wooden stakes, and a little patchof tender grass across which stretched a dead man's arm. The churchbells began to ring.
The Indian out of whose path to life and freedom we had stepped glancedfrom the line of lowered steel to the open gates and the forest beyond,and understood. For a full minute he waited, moving not a muscle, stilland stately as some noble masterpiece in bronze. Then he stepped fromthe shadow of the wall and moved past us through the sunshine thatturned the eagle feather in his scalp lock to gold. His eyes were fixedupon the forest; there was no change in the superb calm of his face. Hewent by the huddled dead and the long line of the living that spoke noword, and out of the gates and across the neck, walking slowly that wemight yet shoot him down if we saw fit to repent ourselves, and proudlylike a king's son. There was no sound save the church bells ringing forour deliverance. He reached the shadow of the trees: a moment, and theforest had back her own.
We sheathed our swords and listened to the Governor's few earnest wordsof thankfulness and of recognition of this or that man's service, andthen we set to work to clear the ground of the dead, to place sentinels,to bring the town into order, to determine what policy we should pursue,to search for ways by which we might reach and aid those who might beyet alive in the plantations above and below us.
We could not go through the forest where every tree might hide a foe,but there was the river. For the most part, the houses of the Englishhad been built, like mine at Weyanoke, v
ery near to the water. Ivolunteered to lead a party up river, and Wynne to go with anothertoward the bay. But as the council at the Governor's was breaking up,and as Wynne and I were hurrying off to make our choice of the craft atthe landing, there came a great noise from the watchers upon the bank,and a cry that boats were coming down the stream.
It was so, and there were in them white men, nearly all of whom hadtheir wounds to show, and cowering women and children. One boat had comefrom the plantation at Paspahegh, and two from Martin-Brandon; they heldall that were left of the people.... A woman had in her lap the bodyof a child, and would not let us take it from her; another, with ahalf-severed arm, crouched above a man who lay in his blood in thebottom of the boat.
Thus began that strange procession that lasted throughout the afternoonand night and into the next day, when a sloop came down from Henricuswith the news that the English were in force there to stand theirground, although their loss had been heavy. Hour after hour they cameas fast as sail and oar could bring them, the panic-stricken folk, whosehomes were burned, whose kindred were slain, who had themselves escapedas by a miracle. Many were sorely wounded, so that they died when welifted them from the boats; others had slighter hurts. Each boatloadhad the same tale to tell of treachery, surprise, and fiendish butchery.Wherever it had been possible the English had made a desperate defense,in the face of which the savages gave way and finally retired to theforest. Contrary to their wont, the Indians took few prisoners, but forthe most part slew outright those whom they seized, wreaking theirspite upon the senseless corpses. A man too good for this world, GeorgeThorpe, who would think no evil, was killed and his body mutilated bythose whom he had taught and loved. And Nathaniel Powel was dead, andfour others of the Council, besides many more of name and note. Therewere many women slain and little children.
From the stronger hundreds came tidings of the number lost, and that thesurvivors would hold the homes that were left, for the time at least.The Indians had withdrawn; it remained to be seen if they were satisfiedwith the havoc they had wrought. Would his Honor send by boat--therecould be no traveling through the woods--news of how others had fared,and also powder and shot?
Before the dawning we had heard from all save the remoter settlements.The blow had been struck, and the hurt was deep. But it was not beyondremedy, thank God! It is known what measures we took for our protection,and how soon the wound to the colony was healed, and what vengeance wemeted out to those who had set upon us in the dark, and had failed toreach the heart. These things belong to history, and I am but telling myown story,--mine and another's.
In the chill and darkness of the hour before dawn something like quietfell upon the distracted, breathless town. There was a pause in thecoming of the boats. The wounded and the dying had been cared for, andthe noise of the women and the children was stilled at last. All waswell at the palisade; the strong party encamped upon the neck reportedthe forest beyond them as still as death.
In the Governor's house was held a short council, subdued and quiet, forwe were all of one mind and our words were few. It was decided that theGeorge should sail at once with the tidings, and with an appeal for armsand powder and a supply of men. The Esperance would still be with us,besides the Hope-in-God and the Tiger; the Margaret and John wouldshortly come in, being already overdue.
"My Lord Carnal goes upon the George, gentlemen," said Master Pory. "Hesent but now to demand if she sailed to-morrow. He is ill, and would beat home."
One or two glanced at me, but I sat with a face like stone, and theGovernor, rising, broke up the council.
I left the house, and the street that was lit with torches and noisywith going to and fro, and went down to the river. Rolfe had beendetained by the Governor, West commanded the party at the neck. Therewere great fires burning along the river bank, and men watching for theincoming boats; but I knew of a place where no guard was set, and whereone or two canoes were moored. There was no firelight there, and no onesaw me when I entered a canoe and cut the rope and pushed off from theland.
Well-nigh a day and a night had passed since Lady Wyatt had told me thatwhich made for my heart a night-time indeed. I believed my wife tobe dead,--yea, I trusted that she was dead. I hoped that it had beenquickly over,--one blow.... Better that, oh, better that a thousandtimes, than that she should have been carried off to some village, savedto-day to die a thousand deaths to-morrow.
But I thought that there might have been left, lying on the dead leavesof the forest, that fair shell from which the soul had flown. I knew notwhere to go,--to the north, to the east, to the west,--but go I must. Ihad no hope of finding that which I went to seek, and no thought but totake up that quest. I was a soldier, and I had stood to my post; but nowthe need was past, and I could go. In the hall at the Governor's house,I had written a line of farewell to Rolfe, and had given the paper intothe hand of a trusty fellow, charging him not to deliver it for twohours to come.
I rowed two miles downstream through the quiet darkness,--so quiet afterthe hubbub of the town. When I turned my boat to the shore the daywas close at hand. The stars were gone, and a pale, cold light, moredesolate than the dark, streamed from the east across which ran, likea faded blood stain, a smear of faint red. Upon the forest the mist layheavy. When I drove the boat in amongst the sedge and reeds below thebank, I could see only the trunks of the nearest trees, hear only thesullen cry of some river bird that I had disturbed.
Why I was at some pains to fasten the boat to a sycamore that dipped apallid arm into the stream I do not know. I never thought to come backto the sycamore; I never thought to bend to an oar again, to beholdagain the river that the trees and the mist hid from me before I hadgone twenty yards into the forest.