The Indian women, unless frantically insane from revenge, were tender and gentle, especially to children. George Percy witnessed one of the horrible sacrifices, when the women themselves with tears and lamentations gave their babes up to the priests. The dead children were cast in a heap in a valley, and the poor women returned, singing a funeral dirge and weeping most bitterly. They were faithful, poor souls, to the instincts of nature. Surely life held small compensation for them. A nurse was once captured, and ordered to reveal the hiding-place of her foster-child, now her mistress, or suffer death. She chose the latter, and her mistress escaped. Vindictive and merciless as was Powhatan, he had his tender emotions and even caressing words for his daughters. But for the massacre of 1622 much might have been said in praise of the Indian. That event proved that no kindness, no confidence, could eradicate his deep-rooted hatred of the white man. For years he kept the secret of the promised universal butchery, and rose as one man at the appointed hour. He gloated over the mangled corpses, insulting, spurning, and mutilating them, sparing none, not even the devoted missionary, Thorpe, who was giving to their welfare, comfort, and instruction all his life and energy. That massacre settled the fate of the Virginia Indian, and yet to a Virginia Indian the colony at Jamestown was indebted for its preservation. Chanco, whose master "treated him as a son," was visited on the eve of the massacre by his own brother, with whom he slept that night. The dreadful secret of the impending slaughter of every white man, woman, and child was confided to Chanco, with the command of the chief as to his own part therein. He was to rise at daybreak and not later than eight in the morning murder his master and all his household! The brother then went on his way with similar orders to the Indians residing near the settlers. Chanco immediately awoke his master, and warning was given in time to save Jamestown. CHAPTER VIII