eason, 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 sword and pike, shot down with the muskets that there was now time
to load. The remainder, hemmed about, pressed against the wall, were
fast meeting with a like fate. They stood no chance against us; we cared
not to make prisoners of them; it was a slaughter, but they had taken
the initiative. They fought with the courage of despair, striving to
spring in upon us, striking when they could with hatchet and knife,
and through it all talking and laughing, making God knows what savage
boasts, what taunts against the English, what references to the hunting
grounds to which they were going. They were brave men that we slew that
day.

At last there was left but the leader,--unharmed, unwounded, though time
and again he had striven to close with some one of us, to strike and
to die striking with his fellows. Behind him was the wall: of the half
circle which he faced well-nigh all were old soldiers and servants of
the colony, gentlemen none of whom had come in later than Dale,--Rolfe,
West, Wynne, and others. We were swordsmen all. When in his desperation
he would have thrown himself upon us, we contented ourselves with
keeping him at sword's length, and at last West sent the knife in
the dark hand whirling over the palisade. Some one had shouted to the
musketeers to spare him.

When he saw that he stood alone, he stepped back against the wall, drew
himself up to his full height, and folded his arms. Perhaps he thought
that we would shoot him down then and there; perhaps he saw himself a
captive amongst us, a show for the idle and for the strangers that the
ships brought in.

The din had ceased, and we the living, the victors, stood and looked at
the vanquished dead at our feet, and at the dead beyond the gates, and
at the neck upon which was no living foe, and at the blue sky bending
over all. Our hearts told us, and told us truly, that the lesson had
been taught, that no more forever need we at Jamestown fear an Indian
attack. And then we looked at him whose life we had spared.

He opposed our gaze with his folded arms and hi