"They must know that we are prepared. But
they have kindled fires along the river bank, and we can hear them
yelling. Whether they'll be mad enough to come against us remains
to be seen."
"The nearest settlements have been warned?"
"Ay. The Governor offered a thousand pounds of tobacco and the
perpetual esteem of the Company to the man or men who would
carry the news. Six volunteered, and went off in boats, three up
river, three down. How many they reached, or if they still have
their scalps, we know not. And awhile ago, just before daybreak,
comes with frantic haste Richard Pace, who had rowed up from
Pace's Pains to tell the news which you had already brought.
Chanco the Christian had betrayed the plot to him, and he
managed to give warning at Powel's and one or two other places as
he came up the river."
He broke off, but when I would have spoken interrupted me with:
"And so you were on the Pamunkey all this while! Then the
Paspaheghs fooled us with the simple truth, for they swore so
stoutly that their absent chief men were but gone on a hunt toward
the Pamunkey that we had no choice but to believe them gone in
quite another direction. And one and all of every tribe we
questioned swore that Opechancanough was at Orapax. So Master
Rolfe puts off up river to find, if not you, then the Emperor, and
make him give up your murderers; and the Governor sends a party
along the bay, and West another up the Chickahominy.
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