And all through the circling years, this wonderful chieftain was completing his plans for another massacre of the people that had come across the ocean to steal away the hunting grounds of the red men. Deep in the gloomy depths of the wilderness, he and his chiefs met, where no white man ever saw them, and whispered their plans to one another. Every dusky breast was thrilled by the hope that has nerved myriads of Indians from the hour that the white men began building their cabins on American soil; it was that of destroying root and branch these invaders of their homes.
INDIANS MAKE POOR SAILORS.
During the Pequod war a boat was captured by the Indians. They tried to sail it and defend it with guns, but as seamen they were failures. The boat was re-captured by the brave colonists and the Indian's slain.
MARRIAGE OF AN INDIAN PRINCESS.
Pocahontas, the daughter of Powhattan, who saved
Captain Smith's life, had a very romantic career.
She afterward married John Rolfe and went to
England to live. She never returned to America.
The chiefs and warriors did not need to be told by Opecancanough that they were staking everything on this single attempt. They had failed by the narrowest chance in 1622, and could not afford to fail again. The secret must be kept, and the wonder of it is that it was kept for twenty-two years. Not a whisper reached the ears of the settlers, nor did any one seem to feel the first throb of misgiving. Through the spring blossoming of flowers, the sultry fervor of summer, the whirling snow and ice of winter, the plotters continued to gather in the twilight depths of the woods, guarded by vigilant sentinels, whom the most cunning scout could not pass, and they talked and smoked their pipes and shook their heads and brought their dreadful plot to perfection. Warriors and chiefs died, and, as we know, the great leader of them all steadily approached the age of a century, but still the blow was withheld, for all was not ready. Incredible as it may seem, Opecancanough was nearly a hundred years old when he gave the order to attack the settlements. By this time, his iron frame had become so feeble that he could not walk. His warriors carried him on a litter, that he might lead in the assault that should not leave a white man or woman on the soil of Virginia.
One cause for fixing upon April 18, 1644, for the attack was the state of affairs at Jamestown. The chief kept himself informed, and he knew of the bitter quarrels that were raging there. Revolts had broken out, and the condition of the people invited the long postponed assault. Opecancanough sent his swiftest runners to the distant tribes of the confederacy which he had built up during the many years that had flown since the first massacre.
AN INDIAN COUNCIL OF WAR