CHAPTER VI.
Our hero was not deceived in his supposition, that the savage tribes inhabiting the Peninsula would make a desperate effort to retain possession of a country so admirably adapted to their mode of life. Two noble rivers, one on either hand, abounding with a variety of fish, and a fertile soil, yielding its treasures with little culture, were considerations in the eyes of these ignorant but not misjudging sons of the forest, not to be surrendered without a struggle.
As the army of the colonists pursued its march toward the point already indicated as the rendezvous of the again confederated tribes, it was constantly harassed with alarms—signal fires and flying bodies of mounted warriors, first cutting off their communication with the river—now assailing the vanguard, and then hovering upon the rear. Three weeks and more were thus consumed in partial and unsatisfactory engagements; the skirmishers first approaching one river, upon the representation of some treacherous savage, and then hurrying back in the opposite direction to meet some illusive demonstration made by the cunning enemy. The youthful commander soon perceived that this mode of warfare was the one exactly suited to the nature and condition of his foes, and the least adapted to the impetuous courage of his own troops. He saw too, that the savages had the double design of wearying out their invaders in the manner we have described, and of collecting and concentrating their forces, at some point where their own mode of warfare could be rendered available, without exposing themselves to the destructive discharges of artillery which they still held in superstitious terror. A very little reflection satisfied him that there would be no immediate danger in pursuing the direct route between the Powhatan and Chickahominy rivers, toward the falls of the former, where he had already some intimation that the enemy were collecting in great force. He was well satisfied that the tribes already dislodged had removed all their winter provisions, and their wigwams being destroyed, there could be little hazard to the city in disregarding their daily demonstrations in his front, flank, and rear. Accordingly his troops were concentrated in a solid column, and marched directly toward the falls, entirely disregarding the petty annoyances which had already detained them so ingloriously in the Peninsula.
While they were marching toward the scene of the great and final struggle for supremacy between their own race and the Aborigines, in this narrow neck of land, which had so long been the scene of contention, we will retrace our steps for a short space, in order to bring up the proceedings at Jamestown to the point at which we have just arrived.
In doing so, however, it is not our intention to fatigue the reader with a minute account of the long and tedious days, and still more wretched nights, spent by our heroine after the shock given to her delicate constitution by the painful and unexpected adventure in the chapel, and by the subsequently reported death of her mother under peculiarly awful and afflicting circumstances. The reader has doubtless more truly imagined her condition during the first paroxysms of the fever, than we could describe it. Down to the time when her favourite and confidant was permitted to enter her room, the daily occurrences of her yet endangered life were sad and monotonous enough, but the paramount cravings of diseased nature once assuaged, her mental excitement once more rose in the ascendant. Not that her reason ever became deranged, except from violent febrile action during the height of the attack; however feeble her physical organization, her mental powers were clear and unclouded, and her spirits, though of necessity somewhat broken, were firm and elastic. The truth is, that she did not believe the assertion of the Recluse by which the nuptial ceremony was so dreadfully interrupted. She had indeed a feeling of superstitious reverence for whatever came from his lips, but she had also seen the wild fire of his eye when under deep excitement, and she did not therefore give implicit confidence to any declaration he should make.
This questioning of his oracular authority was an after-consideration it is true, and was itself prompted by other feelings, having their foundation in the affections of the heart. She could not believe that her lover was her own brother; her feelings toward him were peculiar—powerful, and different from the love of mere kindred. Besides, there were little almost undefinable circumstances in the intercourse of their halcyon days, which she did not believe, could in the nature of man, have taken place between brother and sister. She most truly thought that her lover and herself were expressly created for each other; that their union had been decreed in heaven. That in the first dawnings of their mutual understanding of each other, there had been electrical, spiritual and ever sublime transmissions of mutual intelligence and exquisite pleasure, which could not exist between children of the same parents. These were some of the reasonings which first led her to doubt the infallibility of the Recluse, or rather this was something like the process by which she arrived at firm and undoubting conviction. She viewed the case in this light from the very first moment of unclouded perception, but at first it was a wild tumultuous and suffocating mixture of vague perceptions, and scarcely permitted hopes. As she gradually analyzed her feelings, and examined the reasons for her convictions, the truth dawned more and more clearly upon her view. She was one day sitting, propped up on her couch, during the three weeks in which Bacon was engaged in his Indian campaign, the doctor sitting by her side with his finger upon her pulse. Both were silent and abstracted. The pale beautiful countenance of the invalid was fixed in deep and earnest thought. Her eyes wandered through an open window, and sought a resting place upon some sunny spot of green and refreshing nature. Her lips moved just perceptibly, as if she were conversing with some one in an under tone. At length she slightly raised her head, her eyes sparkled with the brilliancy of stars, waxing brighter and brighter, and her head rising higher and higher from her pillow, until she screamed in wild delight, "The light of heaven and love's inspiration itself declare it false."
The doctor rose with a grave and anxious look, and placing one hand upon her shoulders, and with the other removing the pillows that supported her, laid her gently down, saying,
"I fear there is more excitement about your head to-day, my dear young lady; if it continues you must lose blood again."
"Oh, dear doctor, there is indeed excitement about my head and my heart too, but it is not the excitement of fever; or if it is, it is a dear delightful fever, which I trust in God will never leave me, for it came just now wafted on my brain as if by the music of the spheres."
"Your room must be darkened again, and the cold applications to your head repeated."