trade in furs and skins, inspired the Indians with a bitter
hostility toward the Virginians, and it will easily be seen that the
magazine of discontent needed but a spark to explode in open hostility.

So much is necessary to be premised in order that the reader may
understand the relations which existed, at this period, between the
colonists and the Indians around them.

CHAPTER VIII.

"And in, the buskined hunters of the deer,
To Albert's home with shout and cymbal throng."
_Campbell._

The surprise and horror with which the intelligence of this impending
attack was received by the family at Windsor Hall may be better imagined
than described. Manteo, the leader of the party, a young Indian of the
Pamunkey tribe, was well known to them all. With his sister, the young
girl whom we have described, he lived quietly in his little wigwam, a
few miles from the hall, and in his intercourse with the family had been
friendly and even affectionate. But with all this, he was still ardently
devoted to his race, and thirsting for fame; and stung by what he
conceived the injustice of the whites, he had leagued himself in an
enterprise, which, regardless of favour or friendship, was dictated by
revenge.

It was, alas! too late to hope for escape from the hall, or to send to
the neighboring plantations for assistance; and, to add to their
perplexity, the whole force of the farm, white servants and black, had
gone to a distant field, where it was scarcely possible that they could
hear of the attack until it was too late to contribute their aid in the
defence. But with courage and resolution the gentlemen prepared to make
such defence or resistance as was in their power, and, indeed, from the
unsettled character of the times, a planter's house was no mean
fortification against the attacks of the Indians. Early in the history
of the colony, it was found necessary, for the general safety, to enact
laws requiring each planter to provide suitable means of defence, in
case of any sudden assault by the hostile tribes. Accordingly, the doors
to these country mansions were made of the strongest material, and in
some cases, and such was the case at Windsor Hall, were lined on the
interior by a thick sheet of iron. The windows, too, or such as were low
enough to be scaled from the ground, were protected by shutters of
similar material. Every planter had several guns, and a sufficien