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The historian Robert Beverley tells us that one day the nearly blind warrior heard "a great noise of the treading of people about him; upon which he caused his eye-lids to be lifted up; and finding that a crowd of people were let in to see him, he call'd in high indignation for the Governour; who being come, Opechancanough scornfully told him, that had it been his fortune to take Sir William Berkeley prisoner, he should not meanly have exposed him as a show to the people."
And Rolfe is his brother and his teacher. But Opechancanough is his king, and the red men are his people, and the forest is his home. If, because he loved Rolfe, and because the ways of the white men seemed to him better than his own ways, he forgot these things, he did wrong, and the One over All frowns upon him.
When the corn in the Indians' fields had ripened, and was being gathered, the settlers made their treacherous attack, in turn. They killed without mercy, destroyed the Indians' supplies, and believed that they had slain Opechancanough. There was much rejoicing, but Opechancanough still lived, in good health. He had been too clever for the trap.
Edward Boynton and Richard Savage, who had been left with Powhatan, seeing the treachery, endeavored to escape, but were apprehended by the Indians. At Pamaunky there was the same sort of palaver with Opechancanough, the king, to whom Smith the year before had expounded the mysteries of history, geography, and astronomy.
The eyes of Opechancanough were as fathomless as a pool at midnight, and as devoid of mirth or friendliness as the staring orbs of the carven imps upon the temple corners. "Singing birds have lied to Captain Percy," he said, and his voice was like his eyes. "Opechancanough thinks that Captain Percy will never listen to them again.
Now he flung up his hand, and in it was a bracelet of gold carved and twisted like a coiled snake and set with a green stone. I had never seen the toy before, but evidently others had done so. The excited voices fell, and the Indians, Pamunkeys and Paspaheghs alike, stood as though turned to stone. Nantauquas smiled coldly. "This day hath Opechancanough made me war chief again.
Rarely seen, himself, by the settlers, he continued to direct the movements of his warriors. He refused to enter the settlements. Never yet had he visited Jamestown. Governors came and went, but Opechancanough remained, unyielding. He was eighty-seven when, in 1630, a truce was patched up, that both sides might rest a little.
These were admitted freely to their houses, often supplied with fire-arms, employed in hunting and fishing, and looked upon as faithful allies, many of whom had accepted the Christian faith. But in 1618 the mild-tempered Powhatan had died, and Opechancanough, a warrior of very different character, had taken his place as chief of the confederacy of tribes.
"My eyes have been holden," I told him, "but now I see plainly the deep graves of the hatchets and the drifting of the peace smoke through the forest. Let Opechancanough come to Jamestown to smoke of the Englishman's uppowoc, and to receive rich presents, a red robe like his brother Powhatan's, and a cup from which he shall drink, he and all his people."
Governor Sir William Berkeley called out every twentieth man and boy of the home-guard militia, and by horse and foot and dog pursued. Next we may see the sachem Opechancanough, in his one hundredth year, borne hither-thither in his bough litter, by his warriors, directing them how to retreat, where to fight, and when to retreat again.
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