The sun rose the next morning over the ruins of Orapacs and the scene of the late strife in unclouded splendour. The enlivening notes of drums and trumpets had long since roused the soldiers from their slumbers, and having despatched their morning meal, they were speedily forming into marching order. The commander of this imposing little army mounted his charger, and galloped along the forming battalions; his eye bright and serene, his spirits, in comparison with the previous night, bounding and elastic. Having detailed to his council of officers his intention of next attacking the king of Pamunky, the orders for the march were given, and the lines wheeled into columns, headed by the gay and brilliant cortége of youthful Cavaliers.
The prisoners were marched into the centre of the column, and as they assumed their station, the general ran his anxious eye eagerly over their persons, to ascertain whether his former pupil had availed herself of the accommodations provided by his orders. But no such graceful form greeted his sight, and he learned from the Captain of the guard that she had departed soon after he had himself left the prisoners—entirely alone. A momentary sadness shaded his brow, as he reflected upon the desolate condition of the Indian maiden, but it was soon lost in the absorbing duties of his station.
Toward evening, of the ensuing day, as the army pursued their route between the Chickahominy and Pamunky Rivers, the vanguard discovered several of the Pamunky tribe, skulking among the trees of the forest immediately in advance of them. The general, apprehending an ambuscade, immediately ordered the Cavaliers to fall back upon the main body of the army, while a practised band of rangers were ordered to examine the cover of the wood. Scarcely had these orders been transmitted to their various destinations, before a bright beacon fire shot its spiral column of smoke and flame high above the surrounding trees. What this new device portended the commander could not divine, nor could the council, which was immediately summoned, give to it a satisfactory interpretation. The Rangers returned without discovering any signs of an ambuscade, though they had penetrated to the huge fire which lighted up the forest. Not an Indian was to be seen there or beyond. Bacon and his staff rode forward to the scene in person—but the aid of a glass enabled him to discover nothing more.
The army was again put in motion, and every precaution used which some experience in Indian warfare had taught the general was so necessary. For miles they proceeded with the most watchful caution, until the absence of the undergrowth in the forest taught them that it had been fired, and thereby disclosed the probability of their being in the near neighbourhood of the town of the Pamunkies. The verdant glades were lighted up at intervals by broad masses of red light from the setting sun, as they fell between the natural interstices of the trees. The appearance of the woodland vista before them was romantic and picturesque in the extreme. The forest had the aspect of a country which had been settled for ages. The venerable trees, surmounted with green and brown moss, were now occasionally richly bronzed with the rays of the sun as they fell horizontally upon their hoary trunks, and the whole more resembled an ancient and venerable park, which some wealthy gentleman had inherited from careful and provident ancestors, than a wild woodland, fresh from the hands of nature, in which the woodman's axe had never been heard, and upon which no other care or culture had been bestowed than the occasional torch of the savage.
They were not left long to revel in these wild beauties—a more appalling scene awaited them. The sun was fast declining behind the river hills of the Chickahominy and darkness encircling the sombre groves in which they rode, when suddenly a hundred fires cast a lurid glare across their path, and the army instinctively halted on beholding the town of the Pamunkies wrapped in flames. Again they were put in motion, and cautiously approached the spot. Bacon fearing that some treachery lurked beneath these unexpected measures of the Indians, could scarcely restrain the impetuosity of his mounted force, spurred on by curiosity to see in what new device of savage warfare they would terminate.
They arrived upon the skirts of the town, however, and within the influence of the heat, without hindrance or adventure; and what no less surprised them, not a living creature was perceptible, around or near the conflagration.
The first idea that suggested itself to the mind of Bacon was, that the savages had, in despair, thrown themselves into the burning ruins of their own dwellings. He now understood the meaning of the beacon light on their route; "it was the signal for commencing the tragedy," he muttered to himself as he reined up his steed and ordering his troops to halt, brought them into line along the outskirts of the burning village, which, like the one they had themselves fired, was constructed upon the banks of the Pamunky river. While the troops thus stood upon their arms, some of the officers rode through the blazing wigwams, very much against the will of their rearing and plunging chargers. It was completely deserted; but while they were consulting upon the measures to be taken, a tumultuous and astounding yell burst suddenly upon their startled ears. The intense light of the burning village rendered the twilight gloom around as dark as midnight by the contrast, and not a savage could anywhere be seen. The mounted troop made a wide sweep round the alignment, but with no better success. Another astounding shout of savage voices ascended to the clouds. Many of the frail and tottering wigwams tumbled in at the same moment—throwing the light in a lower line of vision over the water, so that they were enabled to discover a large body of mounted Pamunkies drawn up like themselves on the opposite bank of the river. Their grim and painted visages, close shaven crowns, scalp locks, and gaudy feathers, appeared through the medium of the red and flickering light reflected from the water, in horrible distinctness. A legion of devils from the infernal regions, clothed in all the horrors of German poetry, never startled the senses and aroused the imagination more than did this spectacle its amazed beholders. With another yell and a flourish of their tomahawks above their heads, the Indians simultaneously wheeled their horses and flew over the plain towards the source of the river. In a few moments all was silent as death, save the crackling of the burning wigwams. The squaws and children seemed to have been long since removed. Again the colonial army—or to speak more properly, the army of the people, encamped before the ruins of an ancient and venerable settlement.
Here were no painful reminiscences for the sensitive but energetic commander. The savages were flying before his as yet scarcely tried army, in the very direction in which it was his purpose to drive them. He knew them too well to believe that the whole peninsula would be thus tamely abandoned, and he issued his orders, before lying down to rest, for redoubled vigilance through the night, and an early march in the morning toward the falls of the Powhatan, where he had every reason to believe that the tribes of the former confederacy were again drawing to a head.