an say:

"Farewell, dear home! Better perish thus than be a harbor for tyrants."

Drummond had fired his own house. Mr. Lawrence did the same. The street
was now filled with weeping and shrieking women and children and piles
of household goods. A moment later, and Robert saw the burning flames
leaping up about the home of his childhood--the house his father had
erected. They leaped and crackled angrily and licked the roof with their
hot, thirsty tongues, and he turned away his head. An hour later
Jamestown was no more. It has never been rebuilt, and only the ruins of
the old church mark the spot where once it stood.

Bacon and his army retreated up the country.

CHAPTER XXII.

VENGEANCE WITH A VENGEANCE.

The longer life, the more offence;
The more offence, the greater pain;
The greater pain, the less defence;
The less defence, the greater gain:
The loss of gain long ill doth try,
Wherefore, come death and let me die.
--WYAT.

Bacon still tarried at the Greenspring manor-house after the destruction
of Jamestown, till a messenger came with the alarming intelligence that
a strong force of royalists was advancing from the Potomac.

With his little army of dauntless patriots, he marched to face this new
danger, for there was little more to fear from Sir William Berkeley, who
remained at the kingdom of Accomac, and who would only find smoking
ruins at Jamestown.

"You do not look well," said Robert to the patriot at whose side he
rode. "Your cheek is flushed, and I believe you have a fever."

Bacon, who had contracted a disease in the trenches about Jamestown,
was very irritable. His excitable nature took fire at the slightest
provocation; but with Robert he was ever reasonable.

"I shall be better soon," he answered. "When once we have met these
devils and had this fight over with, I will be well; but I shall free
Virginia, or die in the effort."

"Have a care for your health."

"I shall live to see the tyrant more humbled than when he fled
Jamestown."

Bacon was angry and more eager to fight as his illness increased than
when well. They crossed the lower York in boats at Ferry Point and
marched into Gloucester, where he made his headquarters at Colonel
Warner's and issued his "Mandates" to the Gloucester men to meet him at
the court house and subscribe to the Middle Plantation oath. They
hesitated; but as Colonel Brent