"The several causes of discontent in the colony of Virginia long
nourished in secret, or manifesting themselves in partial riots and
insurrections, were now rapidly maturing, and only the slightest
incident was wanting to precipitate them into open rebellion.
"Since the death of Opechancanough, the Indians, deprived of the
benefits of federative concert, had made but few attempts to disturb the
tranquillity of the colony. Several of the tribes had retired westward,
and those which remained, reduced in their numbers and still more in
strength by the want of a common leader, lingered on the frontiers,
exchanging their superfluous productions at stated marts with their
former enemies. A long peace, added to a deportment almost invariably
pacific, had in a great measure relaxed the vigilance of the colonists,
and the Indians were admitted to a free intercourse with the people of
all the counties. It was scarcely to be expected that during an
intercourse so irregular and extensive no grounds of uneasiness should
arise. Several thefts had been committed upon the tobacco, corn, and
other property of the colonists."
These depredations were becoming daily more numerous and alarming, and
repeated petitions had been sent in from all parts of the colony calling
upon Sir William Berkley in the most urgent terms to afford them
protection. The Governor remained singularly deaf to these reasonable
demands, and took no steps to afford that protection to the citizens for
which government was in a great measure established. Some excuse was
offered by his friends and supporters by pleading his great age and long
services. Sir H. Chicerly, who had some time before arrived in the
colony, clothed with the authority of Lieutenant Governor, and who had
till now remained an inactive participator of the gubernatorial honours,
began to collect the militia of the state; but Sir William was no sooner
informed of these proceedings, so well calculated to allay the rising
popular ferment, than he at once construed it into an attempt to
supersede his authority, and forthwith disbanded the troops already
collected, and countermanded the orders for raising more, which had been
sent by his subordinate through the several counties. These high-handed
measures of an obstinate and superannuated man, inflamed the public
mind. Meetings were called without any previous concert in almost every
county in the province, and the most indignant remonstrances were sent
in to the Governor. These, however, only served to stimulate his
obstinacy, while the continued depredations of the Indians wrought up
the general feeling of dissatisfaction into a blaze of discontent.
While these things were in progress, a circumstance happened, which,
while it brought the contest to an immediate issue, had at the same time
an important bearing upon all the principal personages of our narrative.
On the night succeeding the melancholy catastrophe at the chapel,
related in the last chapter, the tribes of Indians which had formerly
been leagued together in the Powhatan confederacy, simultaneously rose
at dead of night and perpetrated the most horrid butcheries upon men,
women, and children, in every part of the colony. The council had
scarcely convened on the next morning before couriers from every
direction arrived with the dreadful tidings. Among others, there came
one who announced to the Governor that his own country seat had been
consumed by the fires of the savage incendiaries, and that Mrs. Fairfax,
who had been removed thither for change of scene by the advice of her
physician, was either buried in its ruins or carried away captive by the
Indians. Public indignation was roused to its highest pitch, but it was
confidently expected, now that his excellency himself was a sufferer
both in property and feelings, that he would recede from his obstinate
refusal to afford relief. But strange to say, in defiance of enemies,
and regardless of the remonstrances of his friends, he still persisted.
The result ensued which might have been expected; meetings of the
people, which had before been called from the impulse of the moment, and
without concert, were now regularly organized, and immediate steps
taken to produce uniformity of action throughout the different counties.
While these elements of civil discord are fermenting, we will pursue the
adventures of our hero, whom we left just rescued from the hands of the
relentless savages. The new queen of the Chickahominies, after having
conducted Bacon to her own rude palace, retired for a short period in
order to allow him just time to prepare himself for her reception. An
Indian doctor was immediately summoned and directed to extract the
splinters and dress the wounds. The departure of this wild and
fantastical practitioner of the healing art was the signal for her own
entrance. Slowly and doubtfully she approached her visiter, who was
reclining almost exhausted upon a mat. Upon her entrance he attempted to
rise and profess his gratitude, but overcome with pain, sorrow, and
weakness, he fell back upon his rude couch, a grim smile and wild
expression crossing his features. She gracefully and benignantly
motioned him to desist, and at once waived all ceremony by seating
herself on a mat beside him. Both remained in a profound and painful
silence for some moments. Bacon's mind could dwell upon nothing but the
horrid images of the preceding hours of the night. Regardless of her
presence and her ignorance of those circumstances which dwelt so
painfully upon his memory, he remained in a wild abstraction, now and
then casting a glance of startled recognition and surprise at his royal
hostess.
She examined him far more intently and with not less surprise, after the
subsidence of her first embarrassment. Her sparkling eyes ran over his
strange dress and condition, with the rapidity of thought, but evidently
with no satisfactory result. She was completely at a loss to understand
the cause of his visit, and the singular time and appearance in which he
had chosen to make it. It is not improbable that female vanity, or the
whisperings of a more tender passion, connected it in some way with her
own recent flight. These scarcely recognised impressions produced
however an evident embarrassment in her manner of proceeding. She longed
to ask if Virginia was his bride, yet dreaded to do so both on her own
account and his. She had lived long enough in civilized society to
understand the signification of his bridal dress, but she was utterly at
a loss to divine why he should appear in such a garb covered with mud,
as if he had ridden in haste, in the midst of a warlike nation, and on
the very night appointed for the celebration of his nuptials, unless
indeed she might solve the mystery in the agreeable way before
suggested. Catching one of the originally white bridal flowers of his
attire between her slender fingers, she said with a searching glance;
"Faded so soon?" He covered his face with his hands, and threw himself
prostrate upon the mat, writhing like one in the throes of expiring
agony.
His benevolent hostess immediately called a little Indian attendant, in
order to despatch him for the doctor; but her guest shook his head and
motioned with his uplifted hand for her to desist. She reseated herself,
more at a loss than ever to account for his present appearance and
conduct. She had supposed that he was suffering from the pain of his
wounds, but she now saw that of these he was entirely regardless. She
became aware that a more deeply seated pain afflicted him. Again he
turned his face toward the roof of the hut, his hands crossed upon his
breast, and his bosom racked with unutterable misery.
"Is the pretty Virginia dead?"
The blackness of hell and horror was in his face as he turned a scowl
upon his interrogator, and replied, "Is this a new method of savage
torture? If so, call in the first set, they are kind and benignant
compared to you." But seeming suddenly to recollect that she was
ignorant of the pain she inflicted, he took her hand kindly and
respectfully, and continued, "Yes, Wyanokee, she is indeed dead to me.
If you regard the peace of my soul, or the preservation of my senses,
never whisper her name to the winds where it will be wafted to my ears.
Never breathe what she has taught you. Be an Indian princess, but for
God's sake look, speak, or act not in such a way as to remind me of
passed days. Tear open these wounds, inflict fresh tortures--yea,
torture others if you will, so I but horrify my mind with any other
picture than hers. O God, did ever sister rise before man's imagination
in such a damning form of loveliness? With most men, that little word
would suffice to dispel the horrid illusion! but with me, cursed as I
have been from my birth, and as I still am deeper cursed, the further I
pursue this wretched shadow called happiness, I would wed her to-morrow,
yea were the curse of the unpardonable sin denounced upon me from the
altar instead of the benediction. For her I would go forth to the world,
branded with a deeper damnation than ever encircled the brows of the
first great murderer. I would be the scorn, the jest, the by-word of
present generations, and a never dying beacon to warn those who come
after me."
As he proceeded, Wyanokee fixed her dark penetrating eyes upon his face,
until her own countenance settled into the expression of reverential
awe, with which the Indian invariably listens to the ravings of the
maniac. At every period she moved herself backward on the mat, until at
the conclusion, she had arrived at a respectful distance, and crossed
her hands in superstitious dread. A single glance conveyed her
impressions to his mind, and he resumed, "No, no, my gentle preserver,
reason is not dethroned, she still presides here, (striking his
forehead,) a stern spectator of the unholy strife which is kept up
between her sister faculties." Leaning toward her upon his elbow, he
continued in a thrilling whisper, "You have heard me read from the
sacred volume of the tortures prepared for the damned! of a future
existence, in which the torments of ten thousand deaths shall be
inflicted, and yet the immortal sufferer find no death! His soul will
be prepared for the endurance! I have already a foretaste of that
horrible eternity! And yet you see I preserve the power to know and to
endure! Is it not a dread mystery in this frail compound of ours--and
portentous of evil to come, that this faculty of supporting misery so
long outlives the good? The wise men of our race teach us that every
pain endured is a preparation of the opposite faculty to enjoy pleasure!
that our torpid fluids would stagnate without these contrasted
stimulants; 'tis all a delusion, a miserable invention of the enemy. Man
can suffer in this life a compound of horrors, for which its pleasures
and allurements have no equivalent; yea, and he suffers them after all
chance for happiness has vanished for ever. The pleasures of the world
are like the morning glories of a sea of ice. The sun rises and sparkles
in glittering rainbows for an hour, and then sinks behind the dark blue
horizon, and leaves the late enraptured beholder, to feel the chill of
death creeping along his veins, until his heart is as cold and dead as
the icebergs around 'an atom of pleasure, and a universe of pain.'"
His hearer sat in the most profound bewilderment; much of his discourse
was to her unintelligible, and notwithstanding his protestations to the
contrary, she still retained her first impressions as to the state of
his mind. She knew something of the various relations existing between
the most important personages of our story, and in her own mind, had
already begun to account for his present state. She supposed him to have
been rudely torn from his bride. Her object therefore in the following
words, was to learn something more of these particulars, and at the same
time to soothe the excited feelings of her guest.
"The great Father of the white man at Jamestown will restore your bride.
Does not your good book say, 'whom the' Great Spirit 'has joined
together let no man put asunder?'"
"Ay!" replied Bacon, "but what does it say when they are first joined
together by the ties of blood? Besides, he never did join us together in
the holy covenant. He stamped it with his curse? He denounced his veto
against it at the very foot of the altar. The same voice which thundered
upon mount Sinai spoke there. His servant stood up before him and asked,
'If any man can show just cause why they may not lawfully be joined
together let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace.'
And lo, both heaven and earth interposed at the same moment. The
thunders of heaven rent the air, and that most fearful man appeared as
if by miracle." Again lowering his voice to a whisper, he continued, "As
I rode upon the storm last night, and communed with the spirits of the
air, some one whispered in my ear, that the heavens were rent asunder
and he came upon a thunderbolt. And then again as I walked upon the
waves, and the black curtains gathered around, a bright light darted
into my brain and I saw the old Roundheads who were executed the other
day, sitting upon a glorious cloud, mocking at my misery! yea, they
mouthed at me. Ha, ha, ha!" The sound of his own unnatural laughter
startled him like an electric shock--and instantly he seemed to
recollect himself.
He covered his face with his hands, and rested them upon his knees in
silence. Some one entered and spoke to the queen in a low voice, and she
immediately informed her guest that his horse was dead. "Dead!" said he,
as he sprang upon his feet. "His last--best--most highly prized gift
dead! All on the same night--am I indeed cursed--in going out and in
coming in? Are even the poor brutes that cling to me with affection,
thus cut down? but I would see him ere he is cold."
A torch-bearer soon appeared at the summons of his mistress, and the
royal hostess and her guest proceeded to the spot. There lay the noble
animal, his once proud neck straightened in the gaunt deformity of
death. His master threw himself upon his body and wept like an infant.
The tears, the first he had shed, humanized and soothed his harrowed
feelings. Slowly he arose, and gazing upon the lifeless beast, exclaimed
with a piteous voice, "Alas poor Bardolph, thy lot is happier than thy
master's!"
The day was now dawning, and the morning air came fresh and invigorating
to the senses, redolent of the wild perfumes blown upon the moor and
forest, from the influence of a humid night. These reviving influences
however fell dead upon the benumbed faculties of our hero. In accordance
with the urgent solicitations of his hostess, he agreed to swallow an
Indian soporific, and try to lose his sorrows and his memory in that
nearest semblance of death. He did not fail, as he re-entered the
wigwam, to observe that the whole village (called Orapacs) was busily
preparing for some imposing ceremony, and that great accessions had been
made to the numbers of the previous night.
Long and soundly he slept; when he awoke the sun was coursing high in
the heavens. The air was balmy and serene, and his own monomaniacal
hallucinations were dissipated, partly worn out by their own violence
and partly dispelled by many hours of uninterrupted repose. Dreadful is
that affliction which sleep will not alleviate. It is true that one
suffering under a weight of misery which no hope lightens, no reasoning
assuages, wakes to a present sense of his condition with a startling and
miserable consciousness, yet upon the whole, the violence of grief has
been soothed and moderated. So it was with our hero, and he walked forth
a new and revived creature.
But as he stepped from the wigwam, a spectacle greeted his eye more akin
to the fantasies of the previous night than to stern reality. The
village was situated on a plain near the banks of the river. The forest
remained much as it first grew, save that the undergrowth had been
burned away and the ground afterwards overgrown with a luxuriant coat
of grass. This summary method of trimming the primitive forest gives it
much the resemblance of a noble park, cleared of its shrubs,
undergrowth, and limbs, by the careful hands of the woodman. The scene,
as Bacon looked along the woodland vista, had a wild novelty, and its
aspect would doubtless have been sedative in its effect had it not been
for the spectacle already alluded to, which we shall now endeavour to
describe. An immense concourse of Indians was collected just without the
external range of wigwams. They were seated in groups, in each of which
he recognised the distinguishing marks of separate tribes, the
representatives of each distinct nation of the peninsula having a
distinct and separate place. At the head of this warlike assemblage, on
a rude throne sat the youthful Queen of the Chickahominies. Immediately
around the foot of this elevation were seated the few grim warriors yet
remaining of that once powerful nation, and on her right hand the
Powhatans. A fantastically dressed prophet of the latter tribe, with a
curiously coloured heron's feather run through the cartilage of his nose
stood in the centre of the assembled nations, and harangued the deputies
with the most violent gesticulations, every now and then pointing in the
direction first of Jamestown, and then of Middle Plantations, (now
Williamsburg,) and in succession after these, to the other most thickly
peopled settlements of the whites. His rude eloquence seemed to have a
powerful effect upon his warlike audience, from the repeated yells of
savage cheering by which each appeal was followed. He concluded his
harangue by brandishing a bloody tomahawk over his head, and then
striking it with great dexterity into a pole erected in the centre of
the area. Numerous warriors and prophets from other tribes followed with
similar effect and like purpose, to all of whom the stern savages
listened with an eager yet respectful attention. When they had
concluded, the youthful queen of the Chickahominies descended one step
from her throne, and addressed the assembled nations; but her discourse
was received in a far different spirit from that which had attended the
eloquence of her predecessors. She was evidently maintaining the
opposite side of the question which occupied the grave assembly, and it
was apparent that the feelings of her auditors were hostile to her
wishes and opinions. No evidences of delight greeted her benevolent
counsels, and she resumed her seat almost overpowered by the loud and
general murmurs of discontent which arose at the conclusion of her
"talk." She felt herself a solitary advocate of the plainest dictates of
justice and humanity--she felt the difficulty and embarrassment of
addressing enlightened arguments to savage ears and uncultivated
understandings, and a painful sense of her own responsibility, and of
regret for having assumed her present station, pressed heavily upon
heart.
Bacon saw only the eloquent language of their signs and gestures; but
some knowledge of the outrages already perpetrated easily enabled him to
interpret their intentions. He knew that bloodshed and murder were the
objects of their meeting, and he resolved to seize the earliest
opportunity to escape, in order to take part in the defence of his
country. His mind turned eagerly to this wholesome excitement, as the
best outlet which was now left for the warring impulses within his
breast.