ain me, I
will assault the savages in their stronghold."

All, with one accord, assented and declared themselves willing to be led
to the assault. Bacon was at once chosen as the commander of the army.
When he learned that Robert and his friends had come from Jamestown to
aid the people on the frontier, he came to welcome them to his ranks and
to assure them that he appreciated their courage and humanity.

"I have relatives and friends who are captives of the Indians," Robert
explained, "and I shall rescue them or perish in the effort."

"Bravo! spoken like an Englishman. We are kindling a fire which may yet
consume royalty in Virginia."

Nathaniel Bacon was politic, however, and before setting out against the
Indians dispatched another messenger to Jamestown for a commission as
commander. The game between the man of twenty-eight and the man of
seventy had begun. Both possessed violent tempers; both were proud and
resolute, and the man of seventy was wholly unscrupulous. The prospects
were good for a bitter warfare. The old cavalier attempted to end it by
striking a sudden blow at his adversary. Bacon and his army were on
their march through the forest to the seat of Indian troubles, when an
emissary of the governor came in hot haste with a proclamation,
denouncing Nathaniel Bacon and his deluded followers as rebels, and
ordered them to disperse. If they persisted in their illegal
proceedings, it would be at their peril.

Governor Berkeley could not have chosen a more effective way of
crippling the expedition. The resolution of the most wealthy of the
armed housekeepers were shaken. They feared a confiscation more than
hanging or decapitation. One hundred and seventy of the followers of
Bacon obeyed the order and abandoned the expedition.

Fifty-seven horsemen remained steadfast. Among them was Robert Stevens,
who was young and reckless as his daring leader.

The Indians had entrenched themselves on a hill east of the present city
of Richmond, and when the whites approached them, they as usual sent
forth a flag of truce to parley with them. The men who remained with
Bacon were nearly all frontiersmen who had suffered more or less from
the savages.

John Whitney, a frontiersman, had had his home destroyed, and his wife
and child slain by the Indians. While the parley was going on, John
discovered the Indian who had slain his wife and child, and, recognizing
their scalps hanging at the savage's girdle, he levelle