When the chairman of the House addressed her she refused to answer except through the interpreter, though it was believed that she understood all that was said. Finally, when the interpreter had made known to her that the House desired to know how many men she would lend her English friends for guides in the wilderness against her own and their "enemy Indians," she uttered, "with an earnest, passionate countenance, as if tears were ready to gush out," and a "high, shrill voice," a "harangue," in which the only intelligible words were, "Totapotamoy dead! Totapotamoy dead!" Colonel Edward Hill, whose father had commanded the English at the battle of "Bloody Run," and who was present, it is written, "shook his head." In spite of this tragic "harangue," the House pressed her to say how many Indians she would spare for the campaign. She "sat mute till that same question being pressed a third time, she, not returning her face to the board, answered, with a low, slighting voice, in her own language, _Six_. But being further importuned, she, sitting a little while sullen, without uttering a word between, said _Twelve_. . . . and so rose up and walked gravely away, as not pleased with her treatment." While Bacon was dictating laws in Virginia, making ready for the march against the Indians and at the same time preparing a defense of himself for the King, his father, Thomas Bacon, of Friston Hall, England, was on bended knee before his Majesty pleading with him to withhold judgment against the rash young man until he could obtain a full account of his part in the troubles in the colony, concerning which startling tales had already been carried across the water. VII. THE COMMISSION. At last the Grand Assembly's work was done and everything but one was ready for the march against the Indians--the commission which Sir William Berkeley had publicly promised Bacon, and for which alone Bacon and his army tarried at Jamestown, was not yet forthcoming. The perfidious old man, crazed with jealousy of his prosperous young rival in the affections of the people, postponed granting it from day to day, while he secretly plotted Bacon's ruin. His plots were discovered, however, by some of the friends of Bacon, who was "whispered to," not a moment too soon, and informed that the Governor had given orders for him to be arrested again, and that road and river were beset with men lying in wait to assassinate him if he attempted to leave Jamestown. Thus warned, he took horse and made his escape through the dark streets and past the scattered homes of the sleeping town before the sun was up to show which course he had taken. In the morning the party sent out to capture him made a diligent search throughout the town, actually thrusting their swords through the beds in the house of his "thoughtful" friend, Mr. Lawrence, to make sure that he was not hidden in them.