With these words the Rebel once more moved onward, and drew up his "small tired body of men" in an old Indian field just outside of Jamestown. He promptly announced his presence there in the dramatic and picturesque fashion that belonged to the time. Riding forward upon the "Sandy Beach"--a narrow neck of land which then connected the town with the mainland, but has since been washed away, making Jamestown an island--he commanded a trumpet-blast to be sounded, and fired off his carbine. From out the stillness of the night the salute was heard, and immediately, and with all due ceremony, answered by a trumpeter within the town. These martial greetings exchanged, Bacon dismounted from his horse, surveyed the situation and ordered an earthwork to be cast up across the neck of land, thus cutting off all communication between the capital and the rest of the colony except by water. Two axes and two spades were all the tools at the Rebel's command, but all night long his faithful men worked like beavers beneath the bright September moon. Trees came crashing down, bushes were cut and earth heaped up, and before daybreak the fortification was complete and the besiegers were ready for battle. When Sir William Berkeley looked abroad next morning and found the gateway between town and country so hostilely barred he did not suffer his complacency to forsake him for a moment, for he at once resolved to try his old trick, in which he had perfect confidence, of seeking to disarm the enemy by an affectation of friendship. He could not believe that Bacon would have the hardihood to open war with such a pitiful force against his Majesty's representative, and pretending to desire a reconciliation with the Rebel on account of his service against the Indians, he ordered his men not to make attack. XII. JAMESTOWN BESIEGED AND BURNED. But Sir William Berkeley had played his favorite trick at least twice too often. Moreover, he little knew of what stern stuff Bacon and his handful of ragamuffins were made, though they were far too well acquainted with the silver-haired old Cavalier's ways and wiles to pin any faith to the fair words that could so glibly slip off of his tongue and out of his memory.