University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

While Bacon and his partisans were deliberating
in one of the upper rooms of the Berkley Arms,
and Beverly, Ludwell and their friends, still kept
up their potations in the Tap below, all of a
sudden the bells ceased to chime, and the cannons
to roar, and the various other demonstrations of
noisy mirth that pervaded the city, were hushed
into silence. A corresponding stillness instantly
prevailed throughout both the assembled parties,
for a moment, in order to ascertain if possible the
cause of this interruption to the public rejoicings.
No one in either being able to explain the
matter, both parties at the same moment rushed
tumultuously into the street. They beheld men,
women, and children, thronging in the direction
of the public square, and naturally fell into the
current, and were borne on its tide into the very
centre of attraction. Here they found several oxcarts
standing in the street, in the beds of which
were stretched the dead bodies of eight Indians—
fearfully mangled, and one with his head entirely
severed from the body. Twenty voices at once
were interrogating the gaping negroes who bestrode
the cattle, but no other satisfaction could be gained
from them than a mute reference to their master;

a little busy important man, who resided on the
main land, and was now holding forth with great
energy and amplitude of expression, touching his
various adventures of the morning, to a crowd of
eager loungers gathered around him, as if to appropriate
his wonderful disclosure entirely to
themselves.

He stated that he had found the dead bodies
upon the banks of the river, where there were still
many evidences of a desperate conflict of both
horse and foot. That the ground was covered
with blood, and that one party must have been
driven into the river, and drowned, as he had been
enabled to trace them by their footmarks to the
very edge of the water.

It will be readily imagined by the reader that
Nathaniel Bacon was no unmoved spectator of
this scene, or of the various conjectural explanations
that were now given in his hearing, of
a transaction in which he had been such a principal
actor, and of which he could have given such an
authentic history. He was rather rejoiced than
otherwise, that the little planter of the main seemed
so much disposed to indulge his imagination,
as a discovery of his own part in the matter, and
of Virginia's delicate position on the occasion,
was thereby rendered less probable. But his self
congratulations were too hasty; for scarcely had he
revolved these things in his mind, before a sudden
rush of the crowd towards some new object of
surprise arrested his attention. This was no other

than Brian O'Reily, bearing into the crowd upon
his back the dead body of Jamie Jamieson, and
followed by his wife, who to her bruises and misfortunes
had applied the comfort of whiskey in
great profusion. O'Reily, it seemed, had fully
sympathised with the widowed lady, for his motions
were any thing but accordant with the solemnity
of the occasion. Bacon could scarce suppress
a smile as he caught a glimpse of this group through
the crowd. His first object, however, was to
catch O'Reily's eye, and make him understand, if
possible by a look, that he was to volunteer no
evidence in the case. He had no sooner succeeded
in gaining the notice of his attendant, than the
latter applied his finger slyly to his lip, looking
another way at the same time, and thus indicating
that he understood the policy to be pursued, and
that he was not so much intoxicated as he thought
proper to seem. With this doubtful assurance
Bacon was compelled to rest satisfied, walking
about the square all the while in visible agitation.

The corpse of the fisherman being laid out in
the market-place, the officer, whose duty it was,
proceeded to summon an inquest to inquire into
the manner and cause of his death. The first
witness summoned before this tribunal, was, of
course, the wife of the deceased. She testified
that a party of savages had on the preceding night
entered their house, and after having cruelly murdered
her husband, beaten herself, and bound her
limbs with cords, had carried away all their fishing

nets. That having placed these in a canoe, they laid
her in it also, and paddled across the river—where
they were met by another party of savages, about
fifty in number, as she supposed, and while they
were busily engaged in dividing the spoil, a gigantic
man, with a face flaming like fire, and
a sword as long as a fishing pole, had suddenly
fallen upon the murderers, and quickly put them
to flight, or the sword. That having thus conquered
the whole horde, he had placed her in the
boat again, and brought her to her own house,
where he left her, and where she remained alone
until morning, when she was found by Mr. Brian
O'Reily, who happened to be coming that way.

Improbable as some parts of this story were, it
met with a ready credence from nearly the whole
of the multitude; no tale, having any relation to
the Recluse, being so marvellous that they would
not readily believe it. But in no one of the assembled
listeners did it excite greater surprise
than in Bacon himself. It is true, that he readily
recognised in the whole invention the joint influence
of whiskey, and O'Reily's ingenuity, but
even to these he had not supposed that he should
be indebted for such downright falsehoods in his
behalf. Mrs. Jamieson, too, seemed firmly to believe
all that she had testified. Under these circumstances
he did not feel himself called upon to
set the matter right at the expense of Virginia's
feelings, and the inevitable defeat of the measures in
which he was that very morning deeply engaged.

How the Irishman was to manage his part of the
narrative when called upon, as he certainly would
be, and that so speedily that no time would be allowed
to exchange a word with his master, Bacon
could not divine. He knew right well that
O'Reily was gifted with a strong tendency to the
most outrageous and even ridiculous exaggeration,
and that he would carry through whatever he
should undertake to say, with wonderful shrewdness
and imperturbable confidence; but how he
was to make his story agree with that which he
had put into the mouth of Mrs. Jamieson, and
at the same time explain the wound upon his
own face, and the contusion upon his head, without
being guilty of some direct and palpable falsehood,
was more than his master could imagine.
At length Brian O'Reily was called to state what
he knew touching the death of the fisherman.
The first question propounded by the officer was,
“Well, O'Reily, tell the jury how, and when
you came to the house of the deceased.”

“Oh! thin, and I'm bothered to know whether
I got there by land or wather, and faix, I'm after
b'leiven it was naither uv them.”

“How then did you get there, if you went
neither by land nor water?”

“An by the vestments, may be I wouldn't be
far wrang, if I said it was the crathur that took
me there, seein I can't deny it iny way, your
haner.”

“You saw no one strike or maltreat the deceased.”

“It would be but ill manners in me to be conthradictin
your haner.”

“You are sure you did not strike him yourself.”

“As sure as two tin-pinnies—Divil burn the
man that Brian O'Reily ever ill used when he was
down—much less when he was dead, your haner.”
(crossing himself.)

“How then came that cut upon the corner of
your mouth?”

“Oh! murther, and is it these your haner's axing
after?” and he ingeniously placed his finger upon
a smaller wound made by his bottle on the
previous night. “Yes, O'Reily, we wish you to
state how you came by those wounds.”

“Oh! but I'm bowld to show your haner, seein
its you that axed me—sure here's the wapon that
kilt me all out!” and as he spoke, he pulled out
his broken necked bottle and handed it to his
catechist.

“I see it has blood upon it, O'Reily, and this
may explain the cut on your mouth, but how came
that contusion on your temple?”

“Be dad but I run aginst a good big shelaleigh,
an it broke me head so it did—sorra much head I
had left at that same recknin, for the crather.”

“You ran against a club, O'Reily? Was it
growing in the ground or was it in the hands of an
enemy?”

“It might be growin, your haner, or it might be
in the hands of the great inimy himself, for all
that Brian O'Reily knows—sure your haner isn't
very particular in examinin the tixture of the timber
that knocks you down. It might be a door-post—or
may be the gate of the foort—as the
thimber grows as thick here as paraties, and this
gate was always too small for me when I had a
dhrap of the whiskey.”

“You ran against the gate-post, or the facings
of Jamieson's door, then?”

“By the five crasses, an I've done that same
many's the time—barrin always that it would be
ill manners in me to conthradict your haner if I
hadn't.”

“You saw nothing then of the treacherous and
thieving savages on the night of Jamieson's murder?”

“Oh then but I'm puzzled now intirely. By
the holy father, I saw a power of sights on that
same night. The whiskey was clane too strong
for me. I saw all sorts of yeller nagres, and men
widout shadows, and flamin counthenances, and the
fire sparklin from the very eyes of me by the same
token. Divil a word of a lie's in that iny way.”

“But you saw no person strike or maltreat this
man who lies dead here?”

“Divil the one, your haner! Brian O'Reily's
the boy that wouldn't see foul-play to man nor
baste. I never saw Jamie, till I saw him streteched
all out as you see him there.”

“You do not know then but that you may have
encountered the murderers in your own drunken
travels?”

“Faix and you may say that, your haner, widout
a word of a lie in it; it bothers me intirely
to tell what I did see. An, by the five crasses, if
it wasn't for the wapon you've got in your hand
—and poor Jamie that I brought here on my back
—and this thump upon my head, I should say it
was all a dhrame clane out.”

“Well, you may go, O'Reily. I believe you
know little of what happened to yourself or any
one else last night.”

“An that's thrue for you iny way; many thanks
to your haner for your kindness and civility,” said
O'Reily, as he left the crowd, slily tipping a wink
of triumph to his master.

Bacon certainly began to breathe more freely
towards the conclusion, as having edged in with the
crowd, he heard O'Reily's ingenious parries of the
official's thrusts. But his trials were not yet over,
for scarcely had he followed his attendant with his
eye out of the crowd, before Mr. Fairfax stepped
up to the officer and whispered something in his ear.
In a few moments after a deputy was seen leading
Wyanokee into the market-place—a look of the most
profound dejection, still visible through her fright,
at being brought into the presence of such a multitude.

She testified, that two of the Indians slain were
her nearest kinsmen. That the one with his

head severed from the body, was old King Fisher;
and, upon examination, the blue feathers of his patronymic
bird were found still sticking in the matted
tuft of hair upon his crown. She farther stated
that he was her father's only brother, and that
another of the slain was his son—the only two remaining
male relatives she had in the world.
That all these savages were of the Chickahominy
tribe; and that there were not more than two
hundred warriors left of all that brave and powerful
nation which had once thronged the banks
of the Chickahominy river. And here the little
Indian maiden seemed almost suffocated with overpowering
emotions, as the memory of former days
came gushing over her heart. No tear relieved
her swelling emotions, but ever and anon she cast
her eyes over the mangled bodies of her kinsmen,
and once or twice turned with looks more rapid
and of darker meaning towards Bacon. The general
expression of her countenance, however, was
one of profound and overwhelming sadness. Her
soul seemed fully capable of realizing the melancholy
destiny which awaited all the nations of the
aborigines then inhabiting the country, from the sea
board to the blue mountains,[1] and whose fiat was
fast bearing her race from the loved places which
had known them so long. It was doubtless in her
mind a poor compensation for the destruction of
her native tribe and their contemporaries, that she
herself had been reclaimed from the happy ignorance
of savage, to the more painful knowledge of
civilized life.

She was asked if she knew of the visit of these
unfortunate men on the preceding night. Her
eye furtively ran over the eager faces gathered
around, until it fell upon that of Bacon, when a
momentary flash of some internal impulse illumined
her countenance. It might be vengeance, or
the hatred of unrequited passion—but let the cause
be what it might, it glimmered with a demoniacal
fire but for an instant, and then, like the expiring
taper in the socket after its last flash, sunk for ever.
The sadness of past and coming years seemed
concentrated in the despair of one moment. She
waived her hand and shook her head in silence,
thus indicating that she could say no more—that
human endurance had been stretched to its utmost
verge. Walking deliberately out of the crowd
until she came to the trunkless head of the last of
the Chickahominy chiefs, she bent over the mutilated
remains for a moment in unutterable sorrow,
and then throwing her eyes to heaven, dark in despair,
she stooped to pluck one of the blue feathers
from the scalp, and then with sad and lingering
steps, proceeded to her home.

All were impressed with involuntary respect for
the bereaved maiden, and even the hardened officer
suffered her to depart without having finished
his examination. Sufficient, however, had been
gleaned for the jury to bring in a verdict of murder

by the hands of some of the Chickahominy
tribe of savages. This tribe of Indians inhabited
a small town called Orapacks, on the banks of the
river which gave its name to the nation. They
formed a part of the grand confederation which had
first been united under Powhatan, and afterwards his
successor, Opechancanough; the latter of whom so
unfortunately fell, while a prisoner at Jamestown,
by the hands of a dastardly soldier, who took his life
in revenge for some petty wrong, real or imaginary.
The depredation related in the foregoing pages,
and the unfortunate result to so many of its perpetrators,
was the first interruption to the general
peace which Sir William Berkley had been enabled
to secure for the colony, after various sanguinary
massacres and conflicts, with the numerous tribes
composing the empire of Virginia, as it was sometimes
called, and reaching from the Peninsula to
the present seat of Richmond.

It may be well, perhaps, to state that a process
had been despatched, for form's sake, to summon
the Recluse, but it was returned as similar messages
had always been before—he was non est
inventus.

The dead bodies were now removed,—that of
Jamieson to the more consecrated ground around
the church, and those of the Indians to a sort of
Potter's-field or general burying ground, such as
every city has possessed from the time of Judas
Iscariot to the present day.

The necessary and justifiable sacrifice of some half

a dozen savages was, at that time, too common a
circumstance in Jamestown, long to affect the gayeties
of the day. Accordingly the afternoon found
the daughters and wives of the hardy citizens
gayly tripping it over the green common, to which
we have already introduced the reader, inspired by
the music of two sable musicians, who rattled and
scraped defiance to all untoward interruptions
whatsoever. The town was full of strangers from
the neighbouring plantations, together with many
members of the House of Burgesses from surrounding
counties, who had arrived in preparation for
the meeting of that body, summoned to be held on
the third succeeding day. Many of these dignified
personages had collected on the green, to witness
the enjoyment of the humbler citizens and their
wives and daughters.

A merry set of joyful lads and lasses were whirling
through the giddy dance; when all at once a
savage yell abruptly struck upon the ear, the music
ceased, the youths stood still in the circle, while
some of the maidens fled toward the public square,
and others sought the protection of their fathers,
husbands, or lovers. Consternation was visible in
the boldest countenances. The transactions of the
morning had unstrung the nerves of the females,
and urged the sterner sex to thoughts of war, which
had lain dormant since the general peace and
the death of Opechancanough. But soon a jingle
of little bells was heard, and the next moment the
multitude burst into a loud laugh, and simultaneously

cast their eyes up to a tall tree which overhung
the green, and upon which was seen a painted
savage, descending with great agility; he soon
leaped into the middle of the area, where the dance
had been in progress, and commenced shuffing
away at a most indefatigable rate, the fiddlers striking
at the same moment into the humour of this
strange visiter, and he himself dexterously rattling
a number of little bones which he held between his
fingers—the bells all the while continuing to jingle,
and producing the strangest effect upon the ear.
His face was painted in the ordinary warrior guise,
his head shaved close to the cranium, save a lock
upon the crown, to which hung a tuft of scarlet
feathers—his person was grotesquely ornamented
with beads, bells and buttons in great profusion,
interspersed with hundreds of red feathers, from
which he took his name. He was called Red
Feather Jack, and was remarkably fond of the
music and all the ordinary diversions of the whites.
In this respect he was the most remarkable Indian
of his day—that race having been peculiar for the
haughty and dignified contempt with which they
looked upon the amusements of their civilized
neighbours. He was known to be as desperate in
battle as he was light hearted and merry at the
sports of the white man, and had never been
known guilty of any kind of treachery, and was a
universal favourite at Jamestown among all the
young people of both sexes. It may be readily
imagined, therefore, that a shout of “Red Feather
Jack,” which was instantly raised by the assembled
throng, brought no slight accession to their numbers.
The amusement thus afforded was kept up,
intermingled with dances of their own, to which
Jack beat time with his loudest bells, until the hour
had arrived for the commencement of the more imposing
and aristocratic ceremonies and amusements
at the gubernatorial mansion.

Red Feather Jack was believed by many to be
an admirer of Wyanokee's, though of a different
tribe. He had once, on an occasion nearly similar
to the one just related, offered to lead her to the
dance, but the more refined maiden looked upon
him with ineffable scorn and contempt, produced as
much, doubtless, by his undignified and unnational
habits, as by what she considered his inferior rank
and understanding. After the cessation of the
various sports upon the green—in the warehouse,
and throughout the town, Jack was taken to the
Berkley Arms, where his merry perfomances were
kept up until a late hour of the night, to the great
amusement of the loungers and the disappointed
youths who had vainly aspired to a participation
in the celebration of the cavaliers.

There was one peculiar circumstance attending
this day's celebration which became generally the
subject of after remark. Not a sign of festivity or
rejoieing was visible at the Cross Keys. Its master
sat a solitary spectator in his own door, apparently
regarding the passing levities with sovereign
contempt. This of course did not escape without

many comments from the more jovial landlord of
“the Arms.” It was likewise remarkable that
none of the Independents were visible on this
general holyday, and this was the more singular as
many of the humbler followers of the late Lord
Protector had been sold into temporary bondage,
and of course might be supposed eager to enjoy
one day's cessation from labour, even if they did
not care to join the humbler citizens in their demonstrations
of loyalty.