But for two long hours the Princess dumbly sate and bowed her head, Moveless as the statue near her. When at last she spake, she said: "White man's tongue is false. It told me--told me--_that my brave was dead_. "And I lay upon my deer-skins all one moon of falling leaves (Who hath care for song or corn-dance, when the voice within her grieves?), Looking westward where the souls go, up the path the sunset weaves. "Call me 'child' now. It is over. On my husband's arm I lean; Never shadow, _Nenemoosa_, our twain hearts shall come between; Take my hand, and let us follow the great Captain to his Queen." MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON. In 1676 the colony was shaken by a struggle which presaged that other one which was to occur just a century later. An Indian war had broken out along the frontier, but Governor Berkeley disbanded the forces gathered to repress it. Whereupon a young man named Nathaniel Bacon gathered a force of his own, marched against the Indians, and was proclaimed a rebel and traitor by the royal governor, who had collected at Jamestown a force of nearly a thousand men. Bacon, after a campaign in which the hostile Indians were practically wiped out of existence, marched back to Jamestown and besieged the place. After a sally in which he was repulsed, Berkeley sailed away and left the town to its fate. Bacon entered it next morning (September 19, 1676), and, deciding that he could not hold it, set fire to it that evening. It was totally destroyed. THE BURNING OF JAMESTOWN [September 19, 1676] Mad Berkeley believed, with his gay cavaliers, And the ruffians he brought from the Accomac shore, He could ruffle our spirit by rousing our fears, And lord it again as he lorded before: It was--"Traitors, be dumb!" And--"Surrender, ye scum!" And that Bacon, our leader, was rebel, he swore. A rebel? Not he! He was true to the throne; For the King, at a word, he would lay down his life; But to listen unmoved to the piteous moan When the redskin was plying the hatchet and knife, And shrink from the fray, Was not the man's way-- It was Berkeley, not Bacon, who stirred up the strife. On the outer plantations the savages burst, And scattered around desolation and woe; And Berkeley, possessed by some spirit accurst, Forbade us to deal for our kinsfolk a blow; Though when, weapons in hand, We made our demand, He sullenly suffered our forces to go. Then while we were doing our work for the crown, And risking our lives in the perilous fight, He sent lying messengers out, up and down, To denounce us as outlaws--mere malice and spite; Then from Accomac's shore Brought a thousand or more, Who swaggered the country around, day and night.