Nor loth were the Indians to return their charge. Although their party only amounted to about fifty, and Bacon's men numbered several hundred, yet was the idea of retreat abhorrent to their martial feelings. Screening themselves with comparative safety behind the large forest trees, or lying under the protection of the thick undergrowth, they kept up a constant attack with their arrows, and succeeded in effecting considerable loss to the whites, who, incommoded by their horses, or unaccustomed to this system of bush fighting, failed to produce a corresponding effect upon their savage foe. There was something in the religion of these simple sons of the forest which imparted intrepid boldness to their characters, unattainable by ordinary discipline. The material conception which they entertained of the spirit-world, where valour and heroism were the passports of admission, created a disregard for life such as no civilized man could well entertain. In that new land, to which death was but the threshold, their pursuits were the same in character, though greater in degree, as those in which they here engaged. There they would be welcomed by the brave warriors of a former day, and engage still in fierce contests with hostile tribes. There they would enjoy the delights of the chase through spirit forests, deeper and more gigantic than those through which they wandered in life. Theirs was the Valhalla to which the brave alone were admitted, and among whose martial habitants would continue the same emulation in battle, the same stoicism in suffering, as in their forest-world. Such was the character of their simple religion, which created in their breasts that heroism and fortitude, in danger or in pain, that has with one accord been attributed to them. But despite their valour and resolution, the contest, with such disparity of numbers, must needs be brief. Bacon pursued each advantage which he gained with relentless vigour, ever and anon cheering his followers, and crying out, as he rushed onward to the charge, “Don't let one of the bloody dogs escape. Remember, my gallant boys, the peace of your firesides and the lives and safety of your wives and children. Remember the brave men who have already fallen before the hand of the savage foe.” Faithful to his injunction, the overwhelming power of the whites soon strewed the ground with the bodies of the brave savages. The few who remained, dispirited and despairing, fled through the forest from the irresistible charge of the enemy.