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 anything 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 stretched 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. And, 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,2 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 are 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 shuffling 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 performances 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 rejoicing 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.