“Right, my girl,” said her father. “Take your mother up stairs into your room, and try and compose her.”
“Take me, indeed,” said his worthy spouse. “Colonel Temple, you speak as if I was a baby, to be carried about as you choose. I assure you, I will not budge a foot from you.”
“Stay where you are then,” replied Temple, impatiently, “and for God's sake be calm. Ha! now my boys—here they come!” and a wild yell, which seemed to crack the very welkin, announced the appearance of the enemy.
“I think we had all better go to the upper windows,” said Hansford, calmly. “There is nothing to be done by being shut up in this dark hall; while there, protected from their arrows, we may do some damage to the enemy. If we remain, our only chance is to make a desperate sally, in which we would be almost certainly destroyed.”
“Mr. Hansford,” said Virginia, “give me a gun—there is one left—and you shall see that a young girl, in an hour of peril like this, knows how to aid brave men in her own defence.”
Hansford bent an admiring glance upon the heroic girl, as he placed the weapon in her hands, while her father said, with rapture, “God bless you, my daughter. If your arm were strong as your heart is brave, you had been a hero. I retract what I said on yesterday,” he added in a whisper, with a sad smile, “for you have this day proved yourself worthy to be a brave man's wife.”
The suggestion of Hansford was readily agreed upon, and the little party were soon at their posts, shielded by the windows from the attack of the Indians, and yet in a position from which they could annoy the enemy considerably by their own fire. From his shelter there, Bernard, to whom the sight was entirely new, could see rushing towards the hall, a party of about twenty savages, painted in the horrible manner which they adopt to inspire terror in a foe, and attired in that strange wild costume, which is now familiar to every school-boy. Their leader, a tall, athletic young Indian, surpassed them all in the hideousness of his appearance. His closely shaven hair was adorned with a tall eagle's feather, and pendant from his ears were the rattles of the rattlesnake. The only garment which concealed his nakedness was a short smock, or apron, reaching from his waist nearly to his knees, and made of dressed deer skin, adorned with beads and shells. Around his neck and wrists were strings of peake and roanoke. His face was painted in the most horrible manner, with a ground of deep red, formed from the dye of the pocone root, and variegated with streaks of blue, yellow and green. Around his eyes were large circles of green paint. But to make his appearance still more hideous, feathers and hair were stuck all over his body, upon the fresh paint, which made the warrior look far more like some wild beast of the forest than a human being.
Brandishing a tomahawk in one hand, and holding a carbine in the other, Manteo, thus disguised, led on his braves with loud yells towards the mansion of Colonel Temple. How different from the respectful demeanour, and more modest attire, in which he was accustomed to appear before the family of Windsor Hall.
To the great comfort of the inmates, his carbine was the only one in the party, thanks to the wise precaution of the Assembly, in restricting the sale of such deadly weapons to the Indians. His followers, arrayed in like horrible costume with himself, followed on with their tomahawks and bows; their arrows were secured in a quiver slung over the shoulder, which was formed of the skins of foxes and raccoons, rendered more terrible by the head of the animal being left unsevered from the skin. To the loud shrieks and yells of their voices, was added the unearthly sound of their drums and rattles—the whole together forming a discordant medley, which, as brave old John Smith has well and quaintly observed, “would rather affright than delight any man.”
All this the besieged inmates of the hall saw with mingled feelings of astonishment and dread, awaiting with intense anxiety the result.