field-glasses and some historical works, we at last made out that it
was a row of women in white aprons. As our eyes became accustomed to
the trying perspective of over two hundred years, we were able to
recognize the charming wives of some of the most prominent men in the
other fort. The ungallant Bacon had sent out and captured these
excellent ladies, and now placed them in plain sight of their husbands,
thus preventing the other fort from opening fire upon him until he had
his fortification completed.

After the ladies had been helped down from the rough earthworks and had
spoken their minds and taken off their white aprons and gone home, the
battle began. Soldiers from the island fort made a sally across our
isthmus, were repulsed, and later abandoned their works and fled
pell-mell toward James Towne.

At the height of our interest, the flow of life across the historic
isthmus lost colour, then died away. No more painted savages; no more
soldiers; no more gay groups of mounted men and women in bright London
dress; no more worshipful personages in rich velvet and gold lace.
Instead, a slow sombre train crossing heavily over and disappearing
along the forest road on the mainland leading to Williamsburg. Here,
colonial records going by, telling that the brave little capital is a
capital no more; there, a quaint church service, bespeaking abandoned
holy walls and sacred doors flapping in the idle wind; and all along,
those shapeless loads, telling of forsaken firesides, empty streets, a
village deserted. After that, came only an occasional ox-cart, a load
of hay, or (from the other direction) a carryall filled with strangers
curious to visit the site of a little village that was once called
James Towne.