ses and yards, pretending to be friendly, but preparing to
strike.

The moment agreed upon arrived. Instantly the peaceful scene changed.
Acting all together, the Indians in the open seized hatchet, ax, club
and gun, whatever would answer the purpose, and killed. Some of the
settlers had been decoyed into the timber; many fell on their own
thresholds; and the majority died by their own weapons.

The bands in ambush rushed to take a hand. In one hour three hundred
and forty-seven white men, women and children had been massacred. It
was a black, black deed, but so Opechancanough had planned. Treachery
was his only strength.

This spring a guerilla warfare was waged by both sides. Blood-hounds
were trained to trail the Indians. Mastiffs were trained to pull them
down. But the colonists needed crops; without planted fields they
would starve. The governor proposed a peace, that both parties might
plant their corn. When the corn in the Indians' fields had ripened,
and was being gathered, the settlers made their treacherous attack, in
turn. They killed without mercy, destroyed the Indians' supplies, and
believed that they had slain Opechancanough.

There was much rejoicing, but Opechancanough still lived, in good
health. He had been too clever for the trap.

Rarely seen, himself, by the settlers, he continued to direct the
movements of his warriors. He refused to enter the settlements. Never
yet had he visited Jamestown. Governors came and went, but
Opechancanough remained, unyielding.

He was eighty-seven when, in 1630, a truce was patched up, that both
sides might rest a little. So far the Indians had had somewhat the
best of the fighting; the colonists had not driven them to a safe
distance.

The white men were growing stronger, the red men were improving not at
all, and Opechancanough knew that the truce would surely be broken. He
stayed aloof nine years, waiting, while the colonists grew careless.
At last they quarreled among themselves.

This was his chance. From the Chickahominies and the Pamunkeys the
word was spread to the other tribes. The second of his plans ripened.
Opechancanough had so aged that he was unable to walk. He set the day
of April 18, 1644, as the time for the general attack. He ordered his
warriors to bear him upon the field in a litter, at the head of five
united tribes.

Again the vengeful league of the Powatans burst upon the settlers in
Virginia. From the mouth of