Bacon's men had, in their eagerness to procure food, "waded shoulder deep through the river," to one of the island forts, "still entreating and tendering pay for the victuals," but all to no avail. While the half-starved creatures stood in the water, with hands stretched out, still begging for bread, one of them was struck by a shot fired from the mainland, by an Indian. The luckless shot proved to be the signal for a hideous battle. Bacon, knowing full well that retreat meant starvation for himself and his devoted little band of followers, believing that the savages within the fort had sent for others to cut them off in their rear, but not losing the presence of mind that armed him for every emergency, quickly drew his men close against the fort where their enemies could get no range upon them, and ordering them to poke their guns between the stakes of the palisades, fired without discrimination--without mercy. All through the night and until late into the next day the wilderness echoed with the yells of the wounded and dying savages and with the gun-shots of the hunger-crazed palefaces. Let us not forget that this battle was the last resort of an army which championed the cause of the people of Virginia, and upon whose steps the horrors of murder, torture, and starvation waited momently. Let us also not forget that the time was the seventeenth century, the place a wilderness, the provocation an attempt not merely to shut the Anglo-Saxon race from the shores of the New World, but to wipe out with hatchet and torch the Anglo-Saxon homes which were already planted there. When at last, after a loss of eleven of their own hardy comrades, the exhausted Baconians withdrew from the fray, the island fort had been entirely demolished and vast numbers of the Indians slain. While Sir William Berkeley possessed his soul in as much patience as he could command at the Falls of the James, lying in wait for Bacon's return, the inhabitants farther down toward Jamestown began to "draw into arms," and to proclaim against the useless and costly forts. Open war with the Indians was the one thing that would content them, and war they were bent upon having. They vowed that they would make war upon all Indians who would not "come in with their arms" and give hostages for their fidelity and pledge themselves to join with the English against all others. "If we must be hanged for rebels for killing those that will destroy us," said they, "let them hang us; we will venture that rather than lie at the mercy of a barbarous enemy and be murdered as we are."