The reign of peace was at an end. A reign of war had begun. The savages were everywhere in arms, with Opechancanough at their head. The settlers, as soon as the first period of dread had passed, marched against them, burning for revenge, and relentless slaughter became the rule. It was the first Indian war in the British settlements, but was of the type of them all. Wherever any Indian showed himself he was instantly shot down. Wherever a white man ventured within reach of the red foe he was slain on the spot or dragged off for the more dreadful death by torture. There was no truce, no relaxation; it was war to the knife. Only when seed-time was at hand did necessity demand a temporary pause in hostilities. The English now showed that they could be as treacherous and lacking in honor as their savage enemy. They offered peace to the savages, and in this way induced them to leave their hiding-places and plant their fields. While thus engaged the English rushed suddenly upon them and cut down a large number, including some of the most valiant warriors and leading chiefs. From that time on there was no talk or thought of peace. Alike the plantation buildings of the whites and the villages of the Indians were burned. The swords and muskets of the whites, the knives and tomahawks of the red men, were ever ready for the work of death. For ten years the bloody work continued, and by the end of that time great numbers of the Indians had been killed, while of the four thousand whites in Virginia only two thousand five hundred remained. Exhaustion at length brought peace, and for ten years more the reign of blood ceased. Yet the irritation of the Indians continued. They saw the whites spreading ever more widely through the land and taking possession of the hunting-grounds without regard for the rights of the native owners, and their hatred for the whites grew steadily more virulent. Opechancanough was now a very aged man. In the year 1643 he reached the hundreth year of his age. A gaunt and withered veteran, with shrunken limbs and a tottering and wasted form, his spirit of hostility to the whites burned still unquenched. Age had not robbed him of his influence over the tribes. His wise counsel, the veneration they felt for him, the tradition of his valorous deeds in the past, gave him unquestioned control, and in 1643 he repeated his work of twenty-one years before, organizing another secret conspiracy against the whites.