To-morrow's sun, and the
next, and the next, - three suns, - and the tribes will fall upon the
English. At the same hour, when the men are in the fields and the
women and children are in the houses, they will strike, -
Kecoughtans, Paspaheghs, Chickahominies, Pamunkeys,
Arrowhatocks, Chesapeakes, Nansemonds, Accomacs, - as one
man will they strike; and from where the Powhatan falls over the
rocks to the salt water beyond Accomac, there will not be one
white man left alive."
He ceased to speak, and for a minute the fire made the only sound
in the hut. Then, "All die?" I asked dully. "There are three
thousand Englishmen in Virginia."
"They are scattered and unwarned. The fighting men of the
villages of the Powhatan and the Pamunkey and the great bay are
many, and they have sharpened their hatchets and filled their
quivers with arrows."
"Scattered," I said, " strewn broadcast up and down the river, - here
a lonely house, there a cluster of two or three; they at Jamestown
and Henricus off guard, - the men in the fields or at the wharves,
the women and the children busy within doors, all unwarned - O
my God!"
Diccon strode over from the doorway to the fire. "We'd best be
going, I reckon, sir," he cried. "Or you wait until morning; then
there'll be two chances. Now that I've a knife, I'm thinking I can
give account of one of them damned sentries, at least.
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