looked at him closely," he said. "Look again."

I did as he told me, and lowered my musket. It was not for me to send
that Indian leader to his account. Rolfe's lips tightened and a sudden
pallor overspread his face. "Nantaquas?" he muttered in my ear, and I
nodded yes.

The volley that we fired full into the ranks of our foe was deadly, and
we looked to see them turn and flee, as they had fled so often before at
a hot volley. But this time they were led by one who had been trained in
English steadfastness. Broken for the moment by our fire, they rallied
and came on yelling, bearing logs, thick branches of trees, oars tied
together--anything by whose help they could hope to surmount the
palisade. We fired again, but they had planted their ladders. Before we
could snatch the loaded muskets from the women a dozen painted figures
appeared above the sharpened stakes. A moment, and they and a score
behind them had leaped down upon us.

It was no time now to skulk behind a palisade. At all hazards, that tide
from the forest must be stemmed. Those that were among us we might kill,
but more were swarming after them, and from the neck came the exultant
yelling of madly hurrying reinforcements.

We flung open the gates. I drove my sword through the heart of an Indian
who would have opposed me, and, calling for my men to follow, sprang
forward. Perhaps thirty came at my call; together we made for the
opening. A party of the savages in our midst interposed. We set upon
them with sword and musket butt, and though they fought like very devils
drove them before us through the gateway. Behind us were wild clamor,
the shrieking of women, the stern shouts of the English, the whooping of
the savages; before us a rush that must be met and turned.

It was done. A moment's fierce fighting, then the Indians wavered,
broke, and fled. Like sheep we drove them before us, across the neck, to
the edge of the forest, into which they plunged. Into that ambush we
cared not to follow, but fell back to the palisade and the town,
believing, and with reason, that the lesson had been taught. The strip
of sand was strewn with the dead and the dying, but they belonged not to
us. Our dead numbered but three, and we bore their bodies with us.

Within the palisade we found the English in sufficiently good case. Of
the score or more Indians cut off by us from their mates and penned
within that death trap, half at least were already dead, run through
with