Dickon took up a tinder-box that lay on the bench beside him, and in a moment under the fixed gaze of his audience struck a light and applied it to the flax at the breech. There was a flash, then a loud report, and the Indians, as if actually hit, fell to the ground, where they stayed until they gradually convinced themselves that they were unhurt.

"If ye had been in front instead of behind ye had been killed," Smith said solemnly, desiring to impress them with the terrors of the white man's magic.

The Indians got to their feet and, though they said nothing, and did not attempt to run, John Smith knew that they were more terrified than they had ever been in their lives.

"Come," he said, leading the way from the fort to the town. "Since ye find our guns too heavy and too noisy I will seek more suitable presents for Powhatan and for you."

The colonists, roused by the cannon shot, had run out from their doors to see what had happened. They could scarcely believe their eyes, and it was not until Smith called to them by name and questioned them in regard to the happenings at Jamestown since his departure, that they were convinced he was himself. All were thin and gaunt, and they peered hungrily at the baskets of food the Indians bore. Most of them greeted Smith with genuine pleasure; others there were who frowned at the sight of him, who barely nodded a welcome, who answered him surlily and who got together in twos and threes to talk quickly as he passed on.

Smith led the way to the storehouse and bidding the Indians wait outside, he went within and persuaded the man in charge to permit him to take a number of articles. When he came out his arms were full of colored cloths and beads, steel knives and trinkets of many sorts. The Indians gave him their baskets to empty and he filled them with the presents, going back for iron pots and kettles of glistening brass. These he bade them carry to Powhatan. To each of his guides he gave something for himself. Then speaking slowly, he said to Copotone:

"Kehaten Pokahontas patiaquagh niugh tanks manotyens neer mowmowchick rawrenock andowgh (bid Pocahontas bring hither two little baskets and I will give her white beads to make her a necklace)."

He would gladly have sent a message of thanks for her care of him that night, but he thought it best not to do so, since she might not wish it known that she had followed him.

"Pray her to come and see us soon," he added as he bade farewell to his guides whose eagerness to show their treasures at home was even greater than their curiosity to see further marvels.

After he had seen them safely outside of the palisades, Smith stopped to enquire by name for such men as had not come out to greet him.

"Oh! Ralph, he's dead and buried," they answered; and of another: "Christopher? He wore away from very weakness. And Robin went a sen'night ago with a quartain fever. This is no land for white men."

"But thou lookest hale and hearty. Captain," remarked one of the gentlemen, leaning against his door for support. "I'll wager the death thou didst face was not by starvation."

Then Smith learned in full the pitiful story of what the colony had suffered during his absence: lack of food and illness had carried off nearly half the colonists, and those that remained were weak and discouraged. Death had taken both of his enemies and of his friends, but some who had been opposed to him formerly had been brought to see during his absence how with his departure the life and courage of Jamestown had died down. Men there are—and most of them—who must ever be led by some one, and in Smith these adventurers had come to see a real leader of men.

While Smith stood questioning and heartening the downhearted, President Wingfield came out of his house on his way to the Government House. Smith doffed his hat and made a brave bow to honour, if not the man, at least the office he represented.

"So thou art returned. Captain Smith," said the President, coldly. "Methinks thou hast not fared so ill, better belike than most of us. Hast thou brought the provisions thou didst promise? We have been awaiting them somewhat anxiously. But first tell me where thou hast left Robinson and Emery, for the lives of our comrades, however humble, are of more value to us than even the sorely needed victuals."

Now Smith was aware that President Wingfield knew, as every other man in the colony knew, that Robinson and Emery were dead; the others had already discussed their fate with him. Therefore he realized that the President had some policy in putting such a question to him thus in public.

"Thou must have heard, sir, that they are dead," he replied. "Poor lads! Disobedience was the end of them. Had they but followed my commands they had returned alive to Jamestown many days ago; but they must needs land on the shore, instead of keeping in the stream as I bade them, and they were slain by the savages after I was captured."

"That is easily answered, Captain Smith," Wingfield solemnly remarked, and turning his head over his shoulder to speak as he walked off, he added: "The Council will require their lives at thy hands this day. See that thou art present in the Government House this afternoon at three by the clock to answer their questions."

"So that is what their next step is," Smith remarked to his friend Guy, a youth of much promise, as they walked off together. "They will accuse me of murder and try to hang me or to send me back to England in chains. But I have not been saved from death by a young princess to come to any such end, friend."

And as they walked to his house he told the story of his captivity and made plans for getting the better of those who sought to injure him.

The councillors, on their side, were not unanimous as to the course to adopt. Some were for putting him in safe-keeping—they did not mention the word imprisonment—until a ship should arrive and return with him to England. Others, who perhaps felt a doubt of their own ability to manage the settlement, were willing to acknowledge that they had misjudged him and suggested that at least he had better be given a chance to help them; and other timorous members, having witnessed the warmth of the greeting accorded him, advised that it would be wiser not to rush into any course of action which would displease the majority of the colonists. Thus it came to pass that Smith found the three o'clock meeting like a tiger that has had its claws drawn.

In the days that followed his spirit of encouragement, the willingness with which he put his shoulder to the wheel everywhere that aid was needed, his boldness in defying those leagued against him, completely changed the aspect of Jamestown. The gentlemen who had refused to wield axe or spade or bricklayer's trowel because of their gentility were shamed by his example.

"When Adam delved and Eve span Who was then the gentleman?"

he demanded and swung the axe with lusty strokes against some hoary walnut tree.

But though he enjoyed the triumph over his enemies and the knowledge that his return, the provisions he had brought and the inspiration of his courage and activity were of great benefit to his fellows, nevertheless at times he experienced a feeling of loneliness. He thought of Pocahontas and wondered whether she would not come to Jamestown.

It was on a wintry day that Pocahontas made her first visit to the colony. Though they might lack most of the necessities of life, there was no scarcity of fuel. A huge bonfire was blazing at an open space where two streets were destined to meet in the future. Over some embers pulled away from the centre of the flame a pitch-kettle was heating and its owners, while waiting for its contents to melt, were warming a small piece of dried sturgeon. Around the bonfire sat John Smith and several gentlemen. He was pointing out to them on a rough chart the direction in which he thought the town should spread out when a new influx of colonists would need shelter. There were carpenters working on a house a few feet away, but their hammer blows did not ring out lustily as they should do when men are building with hope a new habitation; there was but little strength left in their arms.

When Smith looked up from his chart to indicate where a certain line should run, he saw standing before him the young Indian who had brought him Pocahontas's greeting after the night journey through the forest and who, he now realized, was the same fierce youth who had attempted his life at Werowocomoeo.

Claw-of-the-Eagle spoke:

"Werowance of the white men, Princess Pocahontas sends me to inform thee that she hath come to visit thee. E'en now she and her maidens await thee at the fort."

"She is most welcome," cried Smith, springing up. Then he called out in English: "Come, friends, and help me receive the daughter of Powhatan, who did save me at the risk of her own life. Give her a hearty English welcome."



The colonists needed no urging. They were eager to see what an Indian princess looked like. But Smith outran them all and at the sight of the bright girlish face he stretched out his hands towards her as he would have done to an English maiden he knew well.

"Ah! little friend," he said coaxingly, "thou wilt not be angry with me longer. How much dost thou desire to make me owe thee, Pocahontas, my life, my freedom, my return home and now this pleasure?"

Pocahontas only smiled. Smith then turned, waving his hand to the men who had followed him.

"These, my comrades, would thank thee too could they but speak thy tongue."

The hats of cavaliers and the caps of the workmen were all doffed, and Pocahontas acknowledged their courtesy with great dignity.

"Let us show our guests our town," suggested Smith, "even though it lack as yet palaces and bazaars filled with gorgeous raiment. I will lead the princess; do ye care for her maidens and the young brave." As they walked along the path from the fort to Jamestown's one street he asked: "Tell me, my little jailor, how came The Powhatan to set me free? I have wondered every day since, and I cannot understand. Thou didst prevail with him, was it not so?"

"Aye," answered the girl. "First was I angry with thee, then my heart, though I did not wish to hearken to it, made me pity thee away from thy people, even as I pitied the wildcat I loosed from his trap. My father would not list to me at first, but I plead and reasoned with him, telling him that thy friendship for us would be even as a high tide that covereth sharp rocks over which we could ride safely."

"But what meant the songs and dances in the hut in the woods, Matoaka?"

"That was the ceremony of adoption. Thou art now the son of Powhatan and my brother. Thou wert taken into our tribe, and those were the ancient rites of our people."

"And the journey through the woods, didst thou fear for my safety then that thou didst follow all the way?"

But Pocahontas did not answer. She would not tell him that she had still doubted her father, and that she was not sure what instructions he had given the men ordered to guide the paleface.

"Thou art like the Sun God," said Smith with genuine feeling, "powerful to save and to bless, little sister—since I have been made thy brother. And as man may not repay the Sun God for all his blessings, no more may I repay thee for all thou hast done for me."

Pocahontas was on the point of replying when she suddenly burst out laughing at a sight before her. Two men who were rolling a barrel of flour from the storehouse to their own home let it slip from their weakened fingers. It rolled against one of the carpenters who was standing with his back to it, and hitting against his shins, sent him sprawling. It was undoubtedly a funny sight and she was not the only one to be amused. But the man did not rise.

"Why doth he not get up?" asked Pocahontas. "He cannot be badly hurt by such a light blow from that queer-shaped thing."

"I fear me he is too weakened by lack of food," answered Smith, gravely.

"Hath he naught to eat?" asked the girl in wide-eyed wonder. Then as if a strange thought had just come to her: "Is there not food for all? Must thou, too, my Brother, stint thyself?"

"In truth, little Sister, our rations are but short ones and if the ship cometh not soon from England with supplies, I fear me they must be shorter still."

"No!" she cried emphatically, shaking her head till her long braids swung to and fro, "ye shall not starve while there is plenty at Werowocomoco. This very night will I myself send provisions to thee. It hurts me here," and she laid her hand on her heart, "to think that thou shouldst suffer."

Just then President Wingfield and several officers of the Council, having heard the news of Pocahontas's visit, came toward them. They realized that the presence among them of this child, the best-loved daughter of the powerful Indian chieftain, was an important event. They did not quite know what to expect. Vague ideas of some Eastern queenly beauty, such as the Queen of Sheba or Semiramis, had led them to look for a certain royal magnificence of bearing and of garments, and they were taken aback to behold this slim young creature whose clothing in the eyes of some of them was inadequate. Nevertheless, they soon discovered that though she wore no royal purple nor jewels she bore herself with a dignity that was both maidenly and regal. They had hurriedly put on their own best collars and ruffs and to the eyes of the unsophisticated Indian girl they made a brave, though strange, appearance. She listened to their words of welcome and answered them through Smith's interpretation. But all the while she was taking in every detail of their costumes.

"We must give her presents," suggested one of the councillors as if discovering an idea that had come to no one else, and he sent a servant to fetch some of the trinkets which they had brought for the purpose of bartering with the savages.

Pocahontas forgot her dignity at the sight of them and clapped her hands in delight as Smith threw over her head a long chain of white and blue beads. Her pleasure was even greater when he held up a little mirror and she saw her face for the first time reflected in anything but a forest pool.

"Is that too for me?" she asked eagerly and clasped it to her breast when it was put into her hand, and then she peered into it from one side and the other, unwearied in making acquaintance with her own features.

The other maidens and Claw-of-the-Eagle were given presents also, but less showy ones. Smith went into his own little house and after hunting through his sea-chest, brought out a silver bracelet which he slipped on Pocahontas's arm, saying:

"This is to remind Matoaka always that she is my sister and that I am her brother."

It seemed to Pocahontas that she was incapable of receiving any further new impressions. It was as if her mind were a vessel filled to the brim with water that could not take another drop. Like a squirrel given more nuts than it can eat at once, who rushes to hide them away, her instinct made her long to take her treasures off where she could look at them alone.

"I go back to my father's lodge," she said and did not speak again till they reached the fort. Then when Smith had seen the little party beyond the palisades, she called back to him:

"Brother, I shall not forget. This night I will send thee food. I am well pleased with thy strange town and I will come again."



CHAPTER XII

POWHATAN'S AMBASSADOR

Pocahontas was as good as her word. That same evening as soon as she had exhibited her treasures to Powhatan and to his envious squaws and had related her impressions of the town and wigwams of the palefaces, she busied herself in getting together baskets of corn, haunches of dried venison and bear-meat and sent them by swift runners to "her brother" at Jamestown.

In the days following, though she played with her sisters, though she hunted with Nautauquas in the forest, though she listened at night, crouched against her father's knees before the fire to tales of achievements of her tribe in war, or to strange transformation of braves into beasts and spirits, her thoughts would wander off to the white man's island, to the many wonders it held which she had scarcely sampled. The pressure of her bracelet on her arm would recall its giver, and she saw again in her mind his eyes, so kind when they smiled on her, so stern at other times.

She thought too of the man she had seen rolled over by the barrel—of how slowly he had risen. She knew that there was such a thing as starvation, because sometimes allied tribes of the Powhatans, whose harvests had not been successful or whose braves had been lazy hunters, had come to beseech food from the great storehouse at Powhata. But she herself had never before seen any one faint for food, and it hurt her when she thought of the abundance at Werowocomoco, where not even the dogs went hungry, to know that there were men not far away who must go without. Her father made no objection when a day or two later she told him that she wished to take another supply of provisions to the white men.

"So be it," nodded Powhatan. "Thy captive shall be fed until the big canoe he said was on its way shall arrive. He saith—though this be great foolishness, since he cannot see so far—that at the end of this moon it will come safe over the waters. But until the day of its arrival, whenever that may be, thou canst send or carry of our surplus to them. And hearken, Matoaka," he whispered that the squaws might not hear, "thou hast wits beyond thy years, therefore do thou seek to learn some of the white man's magic. There be times when the cunning of the fox is worth more than the claws of the bear."

So every three or four days Pocahontas brought food to Smith, for his own need and for that of his fellows. Sometimes, accompanied by her sister or her maidens, she would go by night to Jamestown, and half laughing, half frightened, they would set down the baskets before the fort and run like timorous deer back to the forest before the sentinel had opened the gate in the palisade in answer to their call. Sometimes, with Claw-of-the-Eagle as her companion, she would walk through the street of Jamestown, greeting, now with girlish dignity, now with smiles, its inhabitants whose thin faces lighted up at sight of her. She came to symbolize to them the hope in the new world they had all but lost; they rejoiced to see her, not only for her gifts, but for herself.

They taught her to say after them a few words such as "Good-day," "food," and "the Captain," meaning Smith; and the possession of this new and strange accomplishment was almost as dear to her as beads or bracelet. The island for her was a place of enchantment. The sunset gun from the fort awoke more thrills of marvel in her than the rages of a thunderstorm; and the strangest medicine of all was the power the white men had of communicating their wishes to others at a distance by means of little marks upon scraps of paper.

One afternoon when she had come, accompanied by Cleopatra, she found the streets and houses of Jamestown deserted. As they wandered about, wondering what had happened to the palefaces, they heard the sound of voices issuing from a rough shed beyond. They seemed neither to be talking nor shrieking but chanting in a kind of rhythm such as she had never heard. Quietly the two maidens followed the sound to the shed. It was made of wood, open at the sides and roofed over with a piece of sail-cloth. Crouched behind some sumac bushes still bearing aloft their crimson torches, the girls looked on in wonderment, themselves unseen. The sun was sinking behind them, behind the backs too of the colonists who all faced the east. Then Pocahontas whispered to her sister:

"See, Cleopatra, they must be worshiping their Okee. Yon man all in white before them must be a shaman."

A keen curiosity kept her there, though Cleopatra pulled in fright at her skirt, whispering entreaties to be gone before some dire medicine should fall upon them. She saw them all, when the chanting had ceased, kneel down on the bare ground and heard them repeat some incantation which she felt sure must be of great strength, to judge by the firmness of the tone in which they all recited it. Their Okee, she thought, must be a very powerful one; and there came to her as she crouched there, the hidden witness of this evening service, the conviction that her father, if he would, and even with all his tribes, could never conquer this handful of determined men.

She was afraid that "her brother" might be angry with her for having looked on at ceremonies that were perhaps forbidden to women or members of other tribes; so, greatly to Cleopatra's relief, they slipped away, leaving at the fort the provisions they had borne on their strong young backs.

A few days later news came from Opechanchanough that the big canoe, so eagerly expected by the strangers, had been seen at Kecoughtan and was now on its way up the river. Powhatan was astounded, for it was the very day the white captain had foretold its arrival. Truly a man who could see so far across the waves of the big water was one to be feared. And from that day the werowance had deep respect for John Smith and his powers.

Now that the ship had brought provisions there was for a time no need of aid from Werowocomoco. But only for a time. One day when Smith had conducted Pocahontas over the ship to show her the wonders of this monster canoe, he asked her to have her people bring food once more to Jamestown.



"The sailors of Captain Newport," he explained, "are staying here too long and are devouring much of the supplies designed for us. A strange mania hath overtaken them, little Sister; they are mad for gold. They believe that the streams about here are full of the dust they and our men of Jamestown value more than life itself. It is more to them than thy precious pocone, and as thou seest, they desert their ship and spend their days sifting sand. If they are not soon gone there will be nothing left for the mouths of any of us."

"Thou shalt not want, Brother," promised Pocahontas, and the next day came the Indians with large stores of provisions. These Smith now bought from them with beads and utensils and colored cloths. But the President and the Council, jealous of the growing importance of Smith's relations with the savages, sought to increase their own by paying four times the amount Smith had agreed upon.

Discouragement met Smith with each morning's sun and kept him awake at night. The colony seemed to take no root in this virgin soil; men who would not work in the fields to raise grain toiled feverishly in search of gold, forgetting that a full harvest would mean more for their welfare than bags of money. Then, to add to the troubles, a fire started one winter night at Jamestown and spread rapidly over most of the town, burning down the warehouse in which the precious grain was stored. From cold and starvation "more than halfe of us dyed," wrote Smith later in his history.

Both with his own strength and by his example John Smith strove to his utmost to rebuild Jamestown and to encourage the downhearted and to make friends for himself among those who had listened to suspicions of his purposes.

For a long time Powhatan had desired to secure weapons such as the white men used, but the colonists had so far refused the Indians' request to barter them. Now he determined to try other methods. He sent twenty fat turkeys—each a heavy burden for the man who bore it across his shoulders—to Captain Newport, asking that in return the Englishman would send him twenty swords. Newport, whose orders from the authorities in London had been not to offend the natives in any manner, had not refused and had sent the swords in return. Then Powhatan, still eager to secure a further store of weapons, had twenty more fine turkeys carried to Smith, asking for twenty swords more. But Smith, who had been taught by experience and insight many things about the relations which should prevail between the colony and the Indians, knew how unwise it was to give to an untried friend the means of turning against the giver. He knew that the Indians respected his sternness with them more than they did the evident desire of Newport and the Council to please them. Therefore he refused. The disappointed savages showed their anger and cried out insolent words against Smith.

Finding they could not weaken his decision, they sought to steal the swords. They were discovered and Smith, realizing that the time had come when a decided stand must be taken, had them whipped and imprisoned. Some of the Council protested, declaring that this was the wrong way to treat the Indians and urged that Powhatan was sure to resent their action. How did Smith know, they asked, that these savages were acting at the command of their chief? Was it not merely a sudden impulse of anger that had led them to take what ought to have been given them?

But the prisoners, who believed in Smith's power to read the past as well as the future, thinking it useless to try to hide the truth from him, confessed that Powhatan had commanded them to secure the swords by any method. Powhatan was now aware that his plan had failed and that it was necessary for him to disavow the deed of his messengers. To convince the palefaces of his good faith he must send some one to talk with them whom they would trust. And so it was that Pocahontas went to Jamestown as ambassadress.

Accompanied by slaves bearing presents of food, seed corn for the spring planting and pelts of deer and bear and wildcat, Pocahontas was received at Jamestown with much ceremonial.

"I bear these gifts from The Powhatan," she said to Smith, who always acted as interpreter. "He begs thee to excuse him of the injuries done by some rash ontoward captains his subjects, desiring their liberties for this time with the assurance of his love forever."

The manner in which she delivered this little speech was so frank that Smith knew she was ignorant of her father's real part in the theft. The men had had their lesson, and Powhatan his warning, therefore clemency might be effectively dispensed.

"Dost thou desire, Matoaka, that these men should be freed?"

"Oh, yes, my Brother," she replied eagerly. "Thou knowest thyself how the trapped man or beast pines to escape. My heart is sad at the thought of any creature kept in durance."

"And yet, little Sister," answered Smith gravely, while he watched her quick change of expression, "I needs must deliver up these prisoners of mine to another gaoler, to one who will treat them as sternly as thou didst treat me at Werowocomoco."

Pocahontas's drawn brows indicated her endeavor to understand his meaning.

"Wilt thou be their gaoler, Matoaka?" he asked; and she, suddenly comprehending his joke, laughed aloud.

The men were given into her custody and on her return home Powhatan was much pleased with his daughter's embassy.

In September of that year Smith at last was made in name, what he had long been in fact, the head of the colony. As President he could now carry out his plans with less opposition. The building of new houses and the church went on briskly; the training of men in military exercises, the exploration of the shores of Chesapeake Bay—all these received his attention. Master Hunt, the clergyman, whose library had been burned in the fire, spent his time in encouraging the colonists, and twice each day he held his services in the church for whose altar he melted candles and gathered wild flowers.

In London the governors of the Colony had decided it would be a wise thing to attach Powhatan still closer to the English settlement. Their ideas of the position and character of an Indian potentate were very vague indeed. They had been told that all savages were fond as children are of bright colored dress and ornaments. So they reasoned that of course this Indian chieftain of thirty tribes would be delighted with the regal pomp of a coronation. They sent orders by the Phoenix—a ship laden with stores which arrived that summer—that Powhatan should be brought to Jamestown and crowned there with the crown they shipped over for that purpose.

Smith, knowing Powhatan as none of the other colonists did, was not in favor of this plan. It did not seem to him that a crown instead of a feather headdress would make any difference to the werowance, whose power among his own people needed no external decoration to strengthen it. But he had no choice but to obey, so he and Captain Waldo and three other gentlemen, went to Werowocomoco to bring Powhatan back with them.

On their arrival they found the werowance absent, whether by chance or by policy. By this time Powhatan had lost some of his first awe of the white men's wits and had concluded it was worth while to try and meet strangers' wiles with wiles of his own.

"Where thinkest thou he can have gone?" asked Waldo. "I like it not. Smith; mayhap he is e'en now preparing some mischief against us."

"I wish we had not harkened to thee. Captain Smith," said one of the gentlemen, glancing nervously over his shoulder; "it was a fool's wisdom to come thus without good yeomen with match-locks to frighten away their arrows."

"Gentlemen," replied Smith, showing his vexation in his tone, "I tell ye ye are in no danger if ye do not yourselves bring it about with your looks of suspicion. Remember that all Werowocomoco is feasting its eyes upon us, and bear yourselves as Englishmen should."

"Where was it they nearly brained thee, Captain?" queried the fourth. "And not even thy friend, the little princess, is here to welcome thee. Doth not her absence cause thee some anxiety?"

It did in truth set John Smith to wondering. He did not fear that any harm was planned, but Pocahontas's absence was unexpected and he wondered what its significance might be. He had been looking forward to seeing his little sister again in her own home and had expected to enjoy a talk with her which would not be interrupted as their conversations in Jamestown always were by the many demands upon his time and attention. Now that he was so much more familiar with her language, it was a pleasure to discover what a maiden of the forests thought of her own world and that strange world he had brought to touch hers.

The Indians who had come forward to welcome the white men now pointed to a small meadow at the edge of the trees. They did not reply to Smith's questions as to what he was to do there, but knowing that this spot was sometimes used for special purposes. Smith led the way.

"Whither are we bound. Captain?" asked Andrew Buckler querulously. "It doth not seem wise to go further off from our boat. If they mean harm to us we shall have all the longer way to fight through."

"There will be no fighting to be done," declared Smith, not deigning even to slacken his gait.

But just then loud shrieks came from the woods, and between the trees dashed out a score or more creatures directly upon them.



CHAPTER XIII

POWHATAN'S CORONATION

The trees grew so close together that it was difficult for the Englishmen to distinguish in the shadows they cast the figures whirling between the trunks. Half naked they were: here a mass of something painted red; there flashed a white arm, of a whiteness such as nature never dyed, and there issued shoulders of a brilliant blue, as they advanced dancing and shrieking.

"All their war paint on!" ejaculated Captain Waldo.

And in that moment John Smith lost his faith in the friendship Powhatan had sworn to him, and he drew his sword, ready to pierce the first oncomer.

Then he looked again ... and hastily thrust his sword back into its scabbard, shouting to his comrades who had also drawn their blades, "Hold!"

For there before him, the first of the dancers who had run out of the forest, advanced Pocahontas! On her head she wore branching antlers, an otter skin at her waist and one across her arm, a quiver at her back, and she carried a bow and arrow in her hand. In a flash she realized what the Englishmen were thinking—that they were caught in an ambush.

"My Brother!" she cried out in a tone that rang with disappointment, "didst thou too doubt me? Tell them, thy companions, that I lay my life in their hands if any harm was intended."

Seldom in his life had John Smith felt so at a loss as to what he should reply. He hurriedly explained to the others that Pocahontas was evidently intending to do them special honour in welcoming them with some kind of sylvan masque. Then facing her, he cried:

"Forgive us, Matoaka, and be not angry that we mistook thy kindness. See, we seat ourselves here upon the ground and we beseech thee that thou and thy maidens will continue thy songs and thy dancing, which will greatly divert us."

Pocahontas's disappointment vanished at once and she sped back with her comrades to the woods, where they repeated their masque, this time to the amusement of the Englishmen, who were somewhat ashamed to think that they had been so frightened by a troop of girls. All of the dancers were horned like their leader and the upper parts of their bodies and their arms were painted red, white or blue. There was a fire blazing in the centre of the field and around this they formed a ring, dancing and singing a song which, while unlike anything Smith's companions had ever heard, affected their pulses like drumbeats. Some of the words they sang Smith was able to catch words of welcome, songs of young maidens in which they told of the joys of childhood and of the days when sweet-hearts would seek them and when they would follow some brave to his wigwam.

Pocahontas, he thought, was as graceful as a young roe; her feet were as quick as the flames of the fire, and every now and then, from the very exuberance of her happiness, she shot an arrow over their heads into the trees beyond. Smith could not help wondering what kind of a husband she would follow home some day.

The masque lasted an hour; all the different motions were symbolic, as Smith had learned all Indian dances were, and much of it he was able to comprehend. In any case he would have enjoyed the masque, knowing that Pocahontas had performed it to honour her father's guests. When it was over, suddenly as they had come, the maidens vanished into the dark forest.

The Englishmen were not left alone, however, for during the dancing a number of braves and squaws had come to look on at the ceremony and even more at the audience. Now Nautauquas came forward and greeted Smith.

"My father hath just returned. He hurried back when he learned that ye were to visit him. He hath had the guest lodge prepared and awaits your coming there."

Powhatan greeted them when they entered the lodge, which Smith recognized at once as the one where his life had been in such jeopardy.

"Tell them they are welcome, thy comrades," he said to Smith, "and thou, my son, art always as one of mine own people."

They seated themselves on the mats spread for them, and the usual feasting began, the Englishmen doing more than justice to the Indian dishes.

"'Tis a strange beast and of a rare flavor withal, this raccoon," said Waldo, "and methinks the King at Westminster hath no better trencher meat. Hath the old savage asked of thee yet our errand, Smith?"

"An Indian never asks the errand of his guest," he replied; "but now we have eaten it is not meet that I delay longer to tell him."

He rose to his feet and began to speak. Pocahontas, who had stood at the entrance looking in, now entered and sat down at her father's feet.

"Ruler of many tribes, Werowance of the Powhatans, Wahunsunakuk, we have come to bring the greetings sent thee from across the sea by our own great werowance, James. With the English, the Spaniards, the French and other great peoples beyond the seas, their greatest chief who rules many tribes is called a 'king.' He is mightier than all other werowances, hath always much riches and honour, and when the time comes that, by the death of an old king or by conquest, a new king takes his place, he is crowned. They put a circlet upon his head and in his hand they place a staff of honour and upon his shoulders they throw royal robes, so that all who see shall know that this is the King and that all must do him fealty. Our own King James, who hath heard of thee, and of the many tribes that are subject to thee, hath desired that thou, too, shouldst be crowned as another king, his friend, so that the English may know that he calls thee 'brother,' and that thine own people shall hold thee in yet greater awe."

Powhatan manifested no sign of interest in these words; but from the eager look on Pocahontas's face Smith was aware that his Indian speech had at least been comprehended.

"Therefore," Smith continued, "it is planned to hold thy coronation at Jamestown upon as near a day as thou shalt see fit to appoint. Our King hath sent presents for thee which await thy coming to us."

Then he ceased and looked to Powhatan for an answer. The werowance thought a moment in silence, then he spoke:

"If your king hath sent me presents, I also am a king, and this is my land; eight days I will stay to receive them. Your Father is to come to me, not I to him, nor yet to your fort."

He spoke with so kingly a dignity that the Englishmen did not seek to dissuade him. They promised to do as he wished and to persuade Newport, whom he called their "father," to go to Werowocomoco, which might be considered as Powhatan's capital. Then they departed for Jamestown, after having thanked Powhatan and Pocahontas for their entertainment.

Pocahontas awaited their return with eagerness. She talked the matter over with Nautauquas. Perhaps, she said, there was some strange medicine in this ceremony which would make their father invulnerable and perchance safe even from death itself.

"I have more faith in the white men's guns than in their medicine," declared Claw-of-the-Eagle. "Ever since one of those fat housebuilders whom they call Dutchmen let me try to fire off one of them, I know now that they are not worked by magic. If we could manage to get enough of them we should be ten times as strong as their starving company and could destroy all of them before another shipload of newcomers arrived."

"Nay," cried Pocahontas, "not as long as our brother, the captain, lives. Thou couldst not even face his eyes when he is angry."

She did not imagine that she was stating an actual fact. Claw-of-the-Eagle had never been able to look Smith in the eye since he crawled away from the lodge where he had meant to kill the white man. It was only Smith himself who awed him so; but he dreamed that some day he might be able to deal a blow in the dark when those terrible eyes could not stop him. In the meantime he felt equal to meeting the other palefaces day or night.

"But," asked Nautauquas slowly and gravely, as if weighing the matter, "why should we wish to destroy these white men? I once had different thoughts, and I have gone alone into the forest and fasted and prayed to Okee that I might know whether to greet them as foe or friend. In some way the white tribes that live across the great waters have found their way westward. Many have come, the rumor is, to the south of us, men of different race and different tongue from these on the island. These others are cruel to the Indians among whom they have settled and have destroyed many villages and made captive their braves and squaws. Now I have talked with our father, Wahunsunakuk, of what I now speak, since we can no longer hope to hide our trail again to these wanderers from the rising sun, that it is better to make friends of these who have come and who seem well-disposed towards us, and to have them for allies rather than enemies."

In spite of himself, Claw-of-the-Eagle was impressed with this reasoning.

"Dost thou then like these paleface strangers and their ways?" he asked.

"There is much about them I do not understand," replied Nautauquas; "how they can wear so many garments; why they build them houses that let in no air; why they come here when they have villages beyond the seas; yet I know that they are brave and that their medicine is mighty."

Pocahontas spoke little. She had never told anyone how much interest she found in all that concerned the white men and their ways.

It was some days later that Smith, Captain Newport and fifty men started to march to Werowocomoco for the coronation of Powhatan. The presents which the King and the governors of the Colony in London had chosen for him were sent by boat up the river. When the company of Englishmen in their farthingale-breeches, slashed sleeves and white ruffs, their swords and buckles glistening, accompanied by a few soldiers bearing halberds and long muskets, arrived, the entire population of the village and those of other villages for leagues about were awaiting them. Braves and squaws had decked themselves out also in their choicest finery—necklaces and beads and embroidered robes.

It was a wonderful picture that the dark surrounding forest looked upon—the group of gaily colored Indians facing the more soberly dressed Europeans. Round them circled children, pushing, peering between their elders that they might miss nothing. And through it all, running from one group to the other, welcoming, explaining, smiling and laughing, flitted the white-clad Pocahontas.

After their greeting, when Powhatan and Captain Newport eyed each other appraisingly, the gifts were brought into the field where Pocahontas had danced her masque and spread out before the curious gaze of the savages. Pocahontas, in her white doeskin skirt and wearing many strings of white and blue beads, went about among her new friends, and laid her hand into that of Captain Newport, as Smith had told her was the manner in which the English greeted one another. Some of the chieftains scowled at the sight and did not relish the friendliness shown by her to the strangers. Several even remonstrated with Powhatan who, however, would not restrain her. After a few words with Smith, she rejoined Cleopatra and others of her sisters at one side of the field.

"What is yon curious thing, Pocahontas?" they questioned of her superior knowledge, as the wrappings were taken off a bedstead that Captain Newport by means of signs presented solemnly to Powhatan.

"That," she answered, having had a glimpse of such furniture at Jamestown, "that is a couch on which they sleep."

"Is it more comfortable than our mats?" asked Cleopatra. "I should fear to fall out of it into the fire."

Plainly Powhatan, too, was at a loss to know what to do with it. The next gifts, a basin and ewer, met with more enthusiasm. The squaws were particularly interested in them when Pocahontas told them that they were made of a substance which would not break as did their own vessels of sun-baked pottery. But it was the red mantle of soft English cloth, in shape like to the one, he was told. King James had worn at his coronation at Westminster, that made Powhatan's grim features relax a little with pleasure. Captain Newport placed it on the werowance's shoulders and held a mirror that he might behold himself thus handsomely apparelled.

Then they proceeded to the crowning. Newport would have liked to have some words of ritual read, even though the principal of the ceremony had not been able to understand them; but the chaplain pointed out that neither the law nor the Prayer-Book made any provision for the crowning of a heathen, and that after all it was the act, not the words, which would impress the savages.

The drummer beat a loud tattoo and the trumpeter blew a call that startled the squaws and the children into shrieks; the braves were quicker in hiding their astonishment. Then Smith and Newport walked forward, Newport holding the crown. Smith said:

"Kneel, Wahunsunakuk, that we may crown thee."

But Powhatan, whose understanding of these strange proceedings was not clear, though he comprehended Smith's words, continued to stand stiff and straight as a pine tree.

"Kneel down, oh, Powhatan," urged Smith. "Mistake not, this act is a kingly one; so do all the kings of Europe."

But Powhatan would not. To him the posture was one unfitting to the dignity of a mighty werowance, ruler over thirty tribes and lord of sixty villages. He would accept presents sent him, and he had no objection to wearing a glittering ring upon his head if the white men chose to give him one; but he would not kneel; that was going too far in his acquiescence to strange ways. Such a position was for suppliants and squaws and children.

Smith was uncertain what to do. The officers of the Colony in London had laid great stress upon a proper crowning, believing, as he did not, that it would impress the Indians as the symbol of an alliance between their people and the English. He thought a moment, then whispered a word to Newport. The two quickly laid their hands on Powhatan's shoulders and pressed down gently but firmly, a pressure which bowed his knees slightly. Then, before he had time to recover himself, Newport had placed the crown upon his grizzled head.

According to orders, two soldiers, seeing that the ceremony was accomplished, fired a salute with their muskets. Powhatan started suddenly; Nautauquas raised his head like a deer scenting danger, and some of the braves started to run towards the knot of white men. But the calm demeanor of Smith showed them their error.

"We are quits," said Captain Waldo to Buckler; "the maids frightened us with their masks and we have frightened their braves with our muskets."

Powhatan in the red robe and crown seated himself upon the mats that were brought out to him, and Smith whispered to one of the gentlemen who had accompanied him:

"In faith, Radcliffe, is he not more kingly looking than our royal James?"

The idea of a coronation had seemed absurd to him, and he had believed that the old chief would appear ridiculous decked out in mock finery, but he admitted to himself that such was far from being the case.

Then the feast was brought on and the Englishmen again did full justice to the Indian dishes. Pocahontas came and sat beside Smith.

"Welcome, little Sister," he said, "and how dost thou like thy father's new robes?"

"He appeareth strange to me," she answered, "but he will not wear them long. It is beautiful, that cloak, but he can paint his flesh as fine a color with pocone, and it will not be so warm nor so heavy."

Smith laughed.

"Wouldst thou not like to try to wear clothes such as our women wear? Perchance thou mayst try what they are like before long, for soon we shall be seeing white squaws come over on the ships."

"Do white men have squaws, too?" asked Pocahontas in astonishment.

"For a surety. Didst thou think Englishmen could live forever without wife or chick at their hearths?"

"And thou, my Brother," she queried eagerly, "will thy squaw and thy children come soon?"

"I have none, Matoaka; my trails have led through so many dangers that I have not taken a squaw."

"But a squaw would not fear danger if thou couldst take her with thee, or if not, she would wait in thy lodge ready to welcome thee on thy return. She would have soft skins ready for thy leggings, new mats for thee to sleep upon; she would point out all the stores of dried venison she had hung on her tent-pole while thou wert gone, and fresh sturgeon would she cook for thee and prepare walnut-milk for thy thirst."

"'Tis a pretty picture thou drawest, Matoaka," he answered, yet he did not laugh at it. "Often I feel lonely in my wigwam and I wonder if some day I shall not bring a wife into it."

"There would be none who would refuse thee," answered the girl simply.

Smith did not take in the significance of her words, yet his thoughts were of her. Suppose he should throw in his lot altogether with this new country and take for wife this happy, free child of the aboriginal forest? It was only a passing thought. He had not time to consider it further, for Newport had risen and gave the signal for them to start on the return march to Jamestown. He rose, too, and bade farewell to Pocahontas.

During the feasting Powhatan had been thinking over what he meant to do. Gravely he presented to Captain Newport a bundle of wheat ears for spring planting; then with the utmost dignity, he handed him the moccasins and the fur mantle he had laid aside when they placed his coronation robe upon him. Newport received them in amazement, not knowing what he was to do with them; but Smith made a speech of thanks for him.

"What did the old savage mean?" asked Newport as they were on their homeward way. "Was it because he wanted to give a present in return?"

"Methinks," answered Smith, "that Powhatan hath a sense of humor and doth wish to show us that his coronation hath so increased his importance that his cast-off garments have perforce won new value in our eyes."



CHAPTER XIV

A DANGEROUS SUPPER

Some months later, the first of the year 1609, there was again grave danger of starvation at Jamestown, and Smith, remembering the full storehouses at Werowocomoco, determined to go and purchase from Powhatan what was needed. Taking with him twelve men, they set out by boat up the river.

"I doubt not," said John Russell as they sailed along the James, now no longer muddy as in the summer but coated with bluish ice in the shallows, "I doubt not that those fat Dutchmen the Council sent over to build a house for Powhatan—what need hath he of a Christian house?—have grown fatter than ever upon his good victuals while we be wasting thinner day by day."

"I have no liking for those foreigners," exclaimed Ratcliffe, watching with greedy eyes a flock of redhead ducks that flew up from one of the little bays as the boat approached, wishing he could shoot them for his dinner. "Were there not enough carpenters and builders in Cheapside and Hampstead that the lords of the Colony must needs hunt out these ja-speaking lubbers from Zuider-Zee? They have no love for us, no more than we for them. If they thought 'twould vantage them, they would not scruple to betray us to the savages."

As they proceeded up the James, away from tidewater, the ice extended farther out into the river, until when they neared Werowocomoco there was a sheet of it that stretched half a mile out from shore. Smith had determined, so desperate was the plight of the colonists, that he would not go back to Jamestown without a good supply of corn and other food. He hoped that Powhatan would consent to his buying it; but he meant to take it by force if necessary. For some time there had been little intercourse between the English and the Indians; the latter had seemed more unwilling to barter stores, and there was a rumor that Powhatan had new grievances against the white men.

The four Dutchmen who for some weeks had been building the house for Powhatan, had discussed amongst themselves the relative advantages of friendship with the werowance or with the English. They decided that to weaken the latter would be their best policy, since they would be content to see the struggling settlement of Europeans destroyed and to entrust their own fate to the savages. There was much in the Indian method of living which pleased them; plenty of good food and full pipes of tobacco and squaws to serve them. So they laid their plans and imparted to Powhatan in confidence that Smith, who they knew must soon appear in search of supplies, was in reality using this need as a pretext and that he meant to fire upon the Indians and do great damage to Werowocomoco.

Pocahontas did not overhear this talk, but she had watched the four strangers together and her sharp ears had frequently caught the word "Smith" repeated. Now when the news was shouted through the lodges that the boat bearing Smith and his companions was approaching slowly through the broken ice, Pocahontas hurried eagerly to the river and waved her hand to her friends. She watched them come ashore but checked herself as she started to run to meet them. She had a feeling that this was not the moment for pretty speeches, and feared that Powhatan's enmity to the English had been fanned by the Dutchmen until it was ready to burst forth. She determined, instead of showing any interest in the strangers, to appear indifferent to them and to let her people think she had grown hostile to them. She would stay close to her father in order to learn what he intended to do.

The werowance as he came towards them did not wear his red mantle nor his crown of English make, but a headdress of eagle feathers and leggings and a cape of brown bear fur. Perhaps he wished to show that he had no need to wear a crown to look a king. He strode slowly to the river and called out in greeting to the white men:

"Ye are welcome to Werowocomoco, my son, but why comest thou thus with guns when thou visiteth thy father?"

"We be come to buy food from thee, oh Powhatan," answered Smith, "to fill thy hands and those of thy people with precious beads and knives and cloths of many colors for thy squaws in exchange for food for to-day and to last till comes nepinough (the earing of the corn), when we shall harvest the fruit of the seed we plant."

"But lay aside first your arms. What need have ye of arms who come upon such a peaceful purpose? Have ye thought to try to frighten my people to sell thee of their stores? What will it avail you to take by force what you may quickly have by love, or destroy them that provide you food? Every year our friendly trade will furnish you with corn, and now also, if you will come in friendly manner to see us, and not thus with your guns and swords as to invade your foes."

Many of the English, when Smith had translated word after word of the chief's discourse, felt shamed at the show of force their weapons manifested, and would have been willing to lay them by while they were upon the land of this friendly chieftain, whom, they felt, they had misjudged. But Smith was not deceived. He was learning to read the signs of Indian ways, and he knew that the chief had reasons for desiring to see them unarmed. So he called out in answer:

"Your people coming to Jamestown are entertained with their bows and arrows without any exceptions, we esteeming it proper with you as it is with us, to wear our arms as part of our apparel."

There followed more words between the two and much talk of "father" and "son"; but Pocahontas, who listened to it all, was not easy. She had given her affection to Smith since the day she saved his life, and now she was sure that her father planned to harm him. Nautauquas was away with Claw-of-the-Eagle on a foray against the Massawomekes, the latter having sworn to her that he would now accomplish deeds to make the chiefs of his tribe declare him worthy to be called a real Powhatan brave. Had her brother been at Werowocomoco, she might have confided her fear to him; as it was, she realized that she alone must discover her father's intentions.

She saw that Powhatan had withdrawn on some pretext she did not overhear and that Smith, standing at the entrance of the lodge which Powhatan had assigned to the English, was chatting with some of the squaws he remembered from the time of his captivity, while the rest of the white men were busy in carrying the objects they had brought for bartering from the boat to the lodge.

Suddenly a number of Indian braves rushed towards him, arrows notched in the bowstrings. The foremost savage let his arrow fly; it was aimed a few feet too high and, grazing Smith's steel morion, hit the bark of the lodge-covering above his head. The squaws, shrieking loudly, took to their heels. Smith, before another arrow left its bow, whipped out his pistol and pointed it at the advancing crowd. Then John Russell, hearing the commotion, rushed from the lodge. Pressing the snaphance of his musket, he fired into the oncoming savages, but failed to hit one.

Nevertheless, the Indians, seeing that the Englishmen were still armed, turned and fled, disappearing into the forest. Pocahontas, trembling with anger, ran through the trees to find her father to ask him what was the meaning of this treacherous treatment of his guests.

After she had run some little distance she caught sight of Powhatan approaching and, hiding behind a rock, she waited to see whither he was bound. To her amazement, she saw that he was turning to the strangers' lodge and that behind him followed slaves bearing great baskets of food and seed-corn. What could he mean, she wondered, by first trying to kill and then to feast the white men? She followed, herself unseen, while Powhatan approached Smith without the slightest hesitation.

"It rejoiceth my heart, my son," she heard him call out when he was within one hundred feet of where Smith was standing, watching him with puzzled eyes, "to know that thou art unharmed. While I was gone to see that provisions were provided for thee, even according to my word, my young men who were crazed with religious zeal and fasting they have undergone in preparation for a great ceremonial planned by our priests, knew not what they were doing. See, my son, think no evil of us; would we at one moment seek to harm and to help thee? Behold the supplies I, thy father, have here for thee."

And Smith, though he doubted somewhat, did not feel certain that Powhatan was not speaking the truth. But Pocahontas, still in hiding, knew well that no man in Werowocomoco would have dared shoot at the white men except by direct order of their werowance.

Perhaps, however, all was now well; perhaps her father had at least realized that the Englishmen were not to be caught napping. She looked on while Powhatan and Smith superintended the placing of the great piles of stores in the boat and the refilling of the baskets with the goods with which the Englishmen paid for them.

Then, their work over, the Indians began to deck themselves out in the beads and cloths. While they were thus occupied a man came running and dropped down exhausted before Powhatan, able to gasp out a couple of words only. Though the messenger had not breath enough to cry them out, they were heard by the Indians standing nearby and shouted aloud. Immediately the crowd jumped to their feet and uttering loud shrieks, danced up and down and around in circles, to the sound of rattles and drums.

"What is the meaning of all this, Smith?" asked Russell, who with the other white men stood watching the strange performance.

"Tell them, my son," said Powhatan, understanding from the tone of the Englishman's voice that his words were a question, "that two score of my braves, among them Nautauquas and Claw-of-the-Eagle, have won a great victory over one hundred of our enemies, and that this is our song of triumph."

The old chief's eye shone more brightly than ever, and his back was as firm and straight as that of one of his sons.

"I shall soon have witnessed all their different dances," John Smith confided to Russell, when he had repeated Powhatan's explanation. "There lacks now only the war dance."

There was a pause in the dance; then Powhatan gave a signal. Drums and rattles started up once more. The rhythm was a different one, even the white men could tell this; and they noticed that the savages moved more swiftly as if animated by the greatest excitement. Fresh dancers, their faces and bodies painted in red and black, took the places of those who fell from fatigue, and the woods resounded with their loud song.

"It must have been a great victory," suggested Ratcliffe, "to have excited them in this manner."

But Pocahontas's heart beat as if it were the war drum itself, for she knew what the white men did not know, that this last was a war dance; but she was not yet certain against whom her tribe was to take the war-path. She must wait and see.

At last the dancing ceased and the feasting began, and the Englishmen still watched with interest the "queer antics" of the savages, as they called them. All was now so peaceful that they laid aside their weapons, setting a guard to watch them, and sitting about the great fire they had built in the lodge, waited for the morning's high tide to lift their boat out of the half-frozen ooze in which the ebb had left it. Powhatan and the Indians had withdrawn, but the werowance had sent a messenger with a necklace and bracelet of freshwater pearls with words of affection for "his son" and to say that he would shortly send them supper from his own pots, that they might want for nothing that night.

The darkness had come quickly and the woods that stretched between the lodge and the centre of Werowocomoco were thick and sombre. Through them Pocahontas sped more swiftly than she had ever run a race with her brothers. She did not trip over the roots slippery with frost nor, though she had not taken time to put a mantle over her bare shoulders, did she feel the cold. For she knew now that the war dance had been danced against the English.

She was all but breathless when she reached the lodge near the river's edge, but rushing inside, she seized a musket from the pile on the ground, to the astonishment of the guard, who recognized her in time not to hurt her, and thrust it into Smith's hands, crying:

"Arm yourselves, my friends. Make ready quickly," and as Smith would have questioned, she panted: "When your weapons are in readiness then will I speak."

Smith gave hurried orders, reproaching himself for his false confidence. The men sprang up from the fire, seized their long-barrelled muskets and their halberts; and a few who had laid aside their steel corselets hastily fastened them on again, and threw their bandoliers, filled with charges, over their shoulders. The merry, careless party was now quickly converted into a troop of cautious soldiers. Then Smith turned to Pocahontas, whose breath was coming more quietly as she beheld the precautions taken for defence. She answered his unspoken query:

"I overheard the words of the treacherous Dutchmen to my father even now. I feared when I heard the war song and saw them dancing the war dance. Woe is me! my Brother, that I should speak against my own father, but I listened to the plans he hath made to take you here unawares, your weapons out of your hands. For this moment he hath waited all day and he hath sought to deceive you with fair words. They are now on their way with the supper he promised thee; then when you are all eating he hath given orders to his men that they fall upon you and slay all, that none may escape. And so as soon as I learned this, that thou to whom he had sworn friendship and thine were in dire peril, I hastened through the dark forest to warn thee."

Smith was deeply touched by this manifestation of her loyalty. He knew the danger she ran if Powhatan should learn of what she had done.

"Matoaka," he cried, clasping her hand, "thou hast this night put all England in thy debt. As long as this Virginia is a name men remember, so long will men recall how thou didst save her from destruction. In truth, thy father had lulled my suspicions to sleep, and hadst thou not come to warn us we had surely perished. The thanks of all of us to thee. Princess," he continued, when he had turned and told his astonished men the gist of her words, "and to my little Sister my own deep gratitude again."

He loosened a thick gold chain from about his neck, one that he had brought back from the country of the Turks, and put it about her bare neck.

"Take this chain in remembrance," he said. Then his comrades pressed forward, each with some gift they emptied into the maiden's hands.

She gazed at them all lovingly, but she shook her head slowly, the tears falling as she said:

"I dare not, my friends; if my father should behold these gifts he would kill me, since he would know that it was I who had brought ye warning."

Slowly she took off the chain and reluctantly placed in it Smith's hand, and let gently fall the other treasures she longed to keep. Smith bent and kissed her hand as reverently as he had once kissed that of Good Queen Bess.

Pocahontas started. "I hear them coming," she cried, and with one bound she had sprung forth again into the night, skirting the river until she was sure of reaching her lodge without running into the troop of Indians advancing with dishes and baskets of food, who, however, were not slaves but braves and armed.

When these reached the stranger-lodge they brought in the supper and laid it down with apparent great heartiness that is the few who actually bore the baskets. The others found themselves somehow halted by Smith at the entrance and engaged in ceremonious conversation. When they suggested that the white men lay aside their weapons and seat themselves the better to enjoy their food, Smith replied that it was the custom of the English at night always to eat standing, food in one hand and musket in the other. For a long time this parleying went on; Smith would not show that he had discovered their perfidy.

Then the baffled Indians retired to the forest, to await the moment when they could catch the white men off guard. But though all night they spied about the lodge, not once did they find the sentinels away from their posts, and they had too much fear of the "death tubes" to attempt an onslaught on men so well defended.

So, thanks to Pocahontas, the morning dawned on an undiminished number of English, and at high tide they embarked in their boat and returned to Jamestown with their provisions so precariously won.



CHAPTER XV

A FAREWELL

The late summer sun was beating down pitilessly upon the lodges and open spaces of Werowocomoco. Even the children were quiet in the shade, covering their heads with the long green blades of the maize, plaiting the tassels idly and humming the chant of the Green Corn Festival they had celebrated some weeks before. The old braves smoked or dozed in their wigwams, and the squaws left their pounding of corn and their cooking until a cooler hour. The young braves only, too proud to appear affected by any condition of the weather, made parade of their industry and sat fashioning arrow-heads or ran races in the full sunshine, till a wise old chief called out to them that they were young fools with no more sense than blue jays.

Off in the woods, near a hollow in a little stream where the trout and crawfish disported themselves over a bright sandy bottom, Pocahontas lay at full length, her brown arms stretched out, the color of the pine needles beneath them. The leafage of a gigantic red oak shaded her; through its greenery she could see the heavy white clouds, and once an eagle flying as it seemed straight up into the sun. Away from its direct rays, cooled by her bath in the stream and clad in an Indian maiden's light garb, she was rejoicing in the summer heat. She enjoyed the sleepy feeling that dulled the woodland sights and sounds: the tapping of a woodpecker on a distant tree, the occasional call of a catbird, the soft scurrying of a rabbit or a squirrel, the buzzing of a laden bee—all mingled into one melody of summer of which she did not consciously distinguish the individual notes. Just as pleasantly confused were her thoughts, pictures of which her drowsiness blurred the outlines, so that she passed with no effort from the flecked stream she had just left to the moonlit field she and her maidens had encircled a few nights before, chanting harvest songs. She saw, too, the supple bend of Claw-of-the-Eagle's body as he had waited for the signal to bound forward in the race at Powhata when he outran the others; and then she seemed again to see him run the day Wansutis saved him from being clubbed to death.

As if the many deeds of violence done that day called up others of their kind, she saw, and did not shrink from seeing, the fate of the Dutchmen at Werowocomoco who had sought to betray Smith to Powhatan. Her father, angered at them, had had them brained upon the threshold of the house they had built for him.

Then the thoughts of Pocahontas found themselves at Jamestown, whither they now often wandered. She smiled as she remembered her own amazement at the sight of the two Englishwomen who had lately arrived there: Mistress Forrest and her maid, Anne Burroughs. With what curiosity the white women and the Indian girl had measured each other, their hair, their eyes, their curious garments! Then she beheld in her fancy her friend, her "brother," so earnest, so brave, who out of opposition always captured victory. She had witnessed how he forced the colonists to labor, had seen the punishment he meted out to those who disobeyed his commands against swearing—that strange offence she could not comprehend—the pouring of cold water in the sleeve of those who uttered oaths, amid the jeers and laughter of their companions. Her lips continued to smile while she thought of Smith, of the gentle words he had ever ready for her, of the interest he ever manifested at all she had to tell him. He had talked to her as she knew he talked to few, of his hopes for this little handful of men who must live and grow, and how, if they two, he and his "little Sister," could bring it about, the English and the Powhatans should forget any grievances against one another and be friends as long as the sky and earth should last. Perhaps, he had said one day, marriages between the English and the Indians might cement this friendship. "Perhaps thou thyself, Matoaka," he had begun, and then had ceased. Now she wondered again, as she had wondered then, if he had perhaps meant himself.

Such a possibility was an exciting one, and she would have been glad to let her mind explore it fully; but her eyes were heavy and the pine needles soft and fragrant, and soon the beaver, who from a hollow beneath the exposed roots of the oak over the stream had been watching her bright eyes, seeing them closed, slipped forth to begin again his work on the dam her feet had flattened out.

Though Nautauquas, returning an hour later from a peaceful mission to a confederated tribe, made scarcely more noise than the beaver, Pocahontas awoke and raised her head and loosening the needles from her hair, sprang up.

"Greetings, Matoaka!" called out her brother. "Thou wert as snugly hidden here as a deer."

"What news, my Brother?" she asked as he sat down and, taking off his moccasins, let his heated feet hang into the stream.

"Evil news it is," he answered gravely, "for the friends of the great Captain."

"What hath befallen my white Brother?" she cried out; "tell me speedily."

"He was sleeping in his boat, I heard, far off from their island. A big bag of the powder they put into their guns lay in the bottom of his canoe, and when by chance a spark from his pipe fell upon it it grew angry and began to spit and burned his flesh till it waked him, and in his agony, he sprang into the river to quench the blaze."

Pocahontas, who had not winced at the thought of the brained Dutchmen, shivered.

"Where is he now?" she asked. "I wish to go to him."

Nautauquas looked at her earnestly as if he would question her, but did not. "They say he is on his way to Jamestown and should reach there on the morrow."

As Pocahontas and Nautauquas returned at sunset to Werowocomoco, the girl stopped at Wansutis's lodge.

"Thou comest for healing herbs for thy white man," exclaimed the old woman before Pocahontas had spoken a word. "I have them here ready for thee," and she thrust a bundle into the astonished maiden's hands. "But," continued the hag, "though they would cure any of our people, they will not have power with the white man's malady save he have faith in them."

Then she went back into the gloom of her lodge and Pocahontas walked away in silence.

It was not Pocahontas whom Wansutis wished to aid, but the white Captain. The old woman had never spoken to him, or of him to others; but she had listened eagerly to all the tales told of his powers. She was sure that he possessed magic knowledge beyond that of her own people, and she waited for the day when she might persuade him to impart some of his medicine to herself. The fact that he was now injured and in danger did not change her opinion. Some medicine was better for certain troubles than for others. Perhaps her herbs in this case would be stronger than his own magic.

Before the night was over Pocahontas had started on her way to Jamestown. She went alone, since somehow she did not wish to chatter with a companion. The thunder storms had cooled the air and softened the earth. It was still early in the morning when she reached the town, now grown to be a settlement of fifty houses. On the wharf she saw men hurrying back and forth to the ship, fastened by stout hawsers to the posts, bearing bundles of bear and fox skins, such as she had seen them purchase from her people, and boxes and trunks up to the deck. One of the latter looked to her strangely like one she had seen in Smith's house, of Cordova leather with a richly wrought iron lock. "Doubtless," she thought, "he is sending it back filled with gifts for the king he speaks so much of."

She hastened towards his house and before she reached it she saw that his bed had been carried outside the door and that he lay upon it, propped up by pillows. She recognized, too, the doctor in the man who was just leaving him. Now in her eagerness she ran the rest of the way and Smith, catching sight of her, waved his hand feebly.

"Alas! my Brother," she cried as she took his hand in hers, and saw how thin it had grown, "alas! how hast thou harmed thyself?"

"Thou hast heard, Matoaka?" he answered, smiling bravely in spite of the pain, "and art come, as thou hast ever come to Jamestown, to bring aid and comfort."

"I have herbs here for thy wound," she replied, taking them out of her pouch. "They will heal it speedily. They are great medicine."

How could he help believe in their power, she had asked herself on her way that morning. What had Wansutis meant?

"I thank thee, little Sister," he answered gently, "for thy loving thought and for the journey thou hast taken. Before thou earnest my heart was low, for I said to myself: how can I go without bidding farewell to Matoaka; yet how can I send a message that will bring her here in time?"

"Go!" she exclaimed. "Where wilt thou go?"

"Home to England. The chirurgeon who hath just left me hath decided only this morn that his skill is not great enough to save my wound, that I must return to the wise men in London to heal me."

"Nay, nay," cried Pocahontas; "thou must not go. Our wise women and our shamans have secrets and wonders thou knowest not of. I will send to them and thy wound shall soon be as clean as the palm of my hand."



"Would that it might be so, little Sister. I have seen in truth strange cures among thy people; and were my ill a fever such as might come to them or the result of an arrow's bite, I would gladly let thy shamans have their will with me. But gunpowder is to them a thing unknown, nor would their remedies avail me aught."

"Then thou wilt go?" she asked in a voice low with despair.

"Aye, Matoaka, I must or else take up my abode speedily yonder," and he pointed to the graveyard. "It is a bitter thing to go now and leave my work unfinished, to know that mine enemies will rejoice—"

"I shall die when thou art gone," she interrupted, kneeling down beside him; "thou hast become like a god to Matoaka, a god strong and wonderful."

"Little Sister! Little Sister!" he repeated as he stroked her hair. Once again there came to him the thought he had harbored before—that perhaps when this child was grown he might claim her as a wife. Now this would never come to pass.

She knelt there still in silence, then she asked, hope and eagerness in her voice: "Thou wilt come back to us?"

"If I may, Matoaka; if I live we shall see each other again."

He did not tell her what was in his mind, that no English Dorothy or Cicely, golden-haired and rosy-cheeked, would ever be as dear to him as he now realized this child of the forest had grown to be.

And then with perfect faith that her "Brother" would bring to pass what he had promised, Pocahontas's spirits rose. She did not try to calculate the weeks and months that should go by before she was to see him again. She seated herself beside him on the ground and listened while he talked to her of all that he was leaving behind and his love and concern for the Colony.

"See, Matoaka," he said, his voice growing stronger in his eagerness, "this town is like unto a child of mine own, so dear is it to me. I have spent sleepless nights and weary days, I have suffered cold and hunger and the contumely of jealous men in its behalf; nay perchance, even death itself. And thou, too, hast shown it great favors till in truth it hath become partly thine own and dear to thee. Now that I must depart, I leave Jamestown to thy care. Wilt thou continue to watch over it, to do all within thy power for its welfare?"

"That will I gladly, my Brother, when thou leavest it like a squaw without her brave. Not a day shall pass that I will not peer through the forests hitherward to see that all be well; mine ears shall harken each night lest harm approach it. 'Jamestown is Pocahontas's friend,' I shall whisper to the north wind, and it will not blow too hard. 'Pocahontas is the friend of Jamestown,' I shall call to the sun that it beat not too fiercely upon it. 'Pocahontas loves Jamestown,' I shall whisper to the river that it eat not too deep into the island's banks, and"—here the half-playful tone changed into one of real earnestness—"I who sit close to Powhatan's heart shall whisper every day in his ear: 'Harm not Jamestown, if thou lovest Matoaka.'"

A look of great relief passed over the wounded man's face. Truly it was a wondrous thing that the expression of a girl's friendship was able to soothe thus his anxieties.

"I thank thee again, little Sister," he said. "And now bid me farewell, for yon come the sailors to bear me to the ship."

Pocahontas sprang up and bending over him, poured forth words of tender Indian farewells. Then, as the bearers approached, she fled towards the gates and into the forest.

John Smith, lying at the prow of the ship, placed there to be nearer the sea as he desired, thought as the ship sailed slowly past the next bend in the river, that he caught sight of a white buckskin skirt between the trees.



CHAPTER XVI

CAPTAIN ARGALL TAKES A PRISONER

And in the three years that had passed since Smith's return to England Pocahontas did not forget the trust he had given her. Many a time had she sent or brought aid to the colonists during the terrible "starving time," and warded off evil from them. When she was powerless to prevent the massacre by Powhatan of Ratcliffe and thirty of his men, she succeeded at least in saving the life of one of his men, a young boy. Henry Spilman, whom she sent to her kindred tribe, the Patowomekes. With them he lived for many years.

But her relations with Jamestown and its people, though most friendly, were no longer as intimate as they had been when Smith was President, and she went there less and less.

One who rejoiced at her home-keeping was Claw-of-the-Eagle. He had hated the white men from the beginning and had done his share to destroy them in the Ratcliffe massacre, though he had never told Pocahontas that he had taken part in it. He was now a brave, tested in courage and endurance in numerous war parties against enemies of his adopted tribe whose honor and advancement he had made his own. The Powhatan himself had praised his deeds in council.

One day Wansutis said to him:

"Son, it is time now that thou shouldst take a squaw into thy wigwam. My hands grow weak and a young squaw will serve thee more swiftly than I. Look about thee, my son, and choose."

Claw-of-the-Eagle had been thinking many moons that the time had come to bring home a squaw, but he had no need to look about and choose. He had made his choice, and even though she were the daughter of the great Powhatan, he did not doubt that the werowance would give her to one of his best braves. And so, one evening in taquitock (autumn), when the red glow of the forests was half veiled in the bluish mist that came with the return of soft languid days after frost had painted the trees and ripened the bristly chinquapins and luscious persimmons, Claw-of-the-Eagle took his flute and set forth alone.

Not far from the lodge of Pocahontas he seated himself upon a stone and began to play the plaintive notes with which the Indian lover tells of his longing for the maiden he would make his squaw.

"Dost thou hear that, Pocahontas?" queried Cleopatra, who had peeped out. "It is Claw-of-the-Eagle who pipes for thee. Go forth, Sister, and make glad his heart, for there is none of our braves who can compare with him."

"I will not be his squaw. Go thou thyself if he pleaseth thee so," and Pocahontas would not stir from her tent that evening, though the gentle piping continued until the moon rose.

Yet Claw-of-the-Eagle did not despair. Not only had he won fame as a fighter but as a successful hunter as well. Never did he come back to Wansutis's lodge empty-handed. Though the deer he pursued be never so swift, or the quail never so wary, he always tracked down his quarry. And he meant to succeed in his wooing.

So even when Pocahontas left Werowocomoco to visit her kinsfolk, the Patowomekes, he bided his time and spent his days building a new lodge nearby that of Wansutis, that it might be in readiness for the day when he should bring his squaw to light their first fire beneath the opening under the sky.

Meanwhile affairs in Jamestown had been going from bad to worse. Famine had become an almost permanent visitor there. Sir Thomas Gale had not yet arrived from England and no one was there to govern the Colony with the firm hand of John Smith. At length, however, it was decided in the Council that Captain Argall should set forth towards the Patowomekes tribe and bargain with them for grain.

Japezaws, the chief, received him in a friendly manner.

"Yes, we will sell to thee corn as I sold it to thy great Captain when he first came among us. What news hast thou of him? Will he come again to us? He was a great brave."

Captain Argall answered:

"We have no word from him. Perchance he hath succumbed of his wound;" and then, because he was jealous of Smith's fame among the savages, he added, "England hath so many great braves that we waste little thought on those that are gone. Jamestown hath all but forgot him already."

"There is one amongst us who forgets him not," Japezaws pointed to the valley behind him, "one there is who hath him and his deeds ever on the tongue."

"Who may that be?" asked the Englishman, wondering if the Indian village held captive some countryman of his own long since thought dead.

"It is Pocahontas, his friend, who looks eagerly every moon for his return. She abideth gladly amongst us, for she groweth restless as a young brave, and Werowocomoco hems her in."

Even while Japezaws was speaking a thought flashed through Argall's brain; and while the slaves at Japezaws's command poured forth measure after measure of corn and dried meat, the Englishman was adding to his first vague idea, until when the great load of yellow grain lay heaped before him, his plan was fully laid.

"I wish, Japezaws," he began, as if the idea had just struck him, "that Powhatan, her father, had as great a love for Jamestown as his daughter. He will not even sell to us provisions now, though his storehouse is full to o'erflowing. If we could but make him see that, his gains would be greater than ours. 'Tis a matter of but a few more harvests before we have food and to spare, but where shall he find such copper kettles, such mirrors, such knives of bright steel as we would pay him in exchange for that he hath no need of?"

The old chief's eyes glistened with covetousness.

"I want some shining knives; I want to see a vessel that will not break when my squaws let it fall on a rock. I want some of the marvels ye keep in your lodges."

Argall smiled; the fly had caught the fish for which he angled.

"As soon as a man may hurry to Jamestown and back they shall be thine if—thou wilt do what I ask of thee."

"And what is thy will?" Suspicion had now awakened in the Indian.

"Hearken!" continued Argall. "Thou knowest that Powhatan hath stolen from us sundry arms and keeps in captivity some of our men. If he will make peace with us we need not take our war party through the forests to Werowocomoco, and the lives of many Indians will be spared."

Here Japezaws grunted, but Argall did not appear to notice it.

"If we held a hostage of Powhatan, someone who was dear to him, we could force him to do as we would."

He paused and glanced at the Indian who, whatever he may have thought, betrayed nothing.

"If thou wilt entrust the Princess Pocahontas to us," continued Argall, "she shall be taken to Jamestown and there detained in all gentleness, in the house of a worthy lady, until Powhatan agreeth to our terms and she will be conveyed in safety to her father. And for thee, for thy help in this matter, such presents shall be sent thee as thou hast never seen, such as no one, not even Powhatan, hath yet received."

Japezaws was silent a little. The maiden was his guest, and his people had always upheld the sacred duties of hospitality. But he knew that no harm would befall her. The friendship of the English for her was known to all his tribe and the great affection of her father to this, his favorite daughter. In a day or two she would be ransomed by Powhatan, and for his part in the matter, he, Japezaws, would gain what he so greatly longed to possess. He wasted neither time nor words:

"Meet me here at sunset, and I will bring her to thee."

Claw-of-the-Eagle had not thought to stir away from Wansutis's lodge for many days to come. Food in plenty was stored there and he had need to busy himself with the making of a new bow and arrows. But Wansutis, letting fall the stone with which she was grinding maize, looked up suddenly as if she heard distant voices. The youth, however, heard nothing. Then she said:

"Son, if in truth thy mind is set upon a certain maiden for thy squaw, go seek her at once in the village of the Patowomekes. She hath been there over long."

Claw-of-the-Eagle did not ask for any explanation of his mother's words. He had learned that she seemed to possess some strange knowledge he could not fathom, but which he respected. Therefore, without any discussion, with only a word of farewell, he took his bow and quiver and his wooing pipe and set forth.

As he approached the village of Japezaws at the end of several days' journey, he said to himself:

"Before three days are past I shall return this way with my squaw. No longer will I wait for her to feign deafness to my piping. She shall listen to it and follow me to my lodge."

Knowing that he was among a friendly allied tribe, Claw-of-the-Eagle strode along as openly and as carelessly as he would have done at Werowocomoco or Powhata. Yet suddenly, like a deer that scents a bear, he stood still, his nostrils quivering; then, slipping behind a tree, he notched an arrow to his bow.

"A white man," he thought, long before his eyes caught sight of him.

Concealed by the tree, he waited and watched pass the man he knew was the new English captain, and to his astonishment found that the women who accompanied him were Pocahontas and a squaw of the Patowomekes. It was the squaw of Japezaws; and it was at his bidding that she was now acting.

"Because thou hast seen as often as thou wilt the lodges of the palefaces," Claw-of-the-Eagle heard her say to Pocahontas, "is it right for thee to marvel that I am eager to witness with mine own eyes such strange ways as are theirs and the marvels the white chief hath stored in the canoe?"

"I do not wonder," laughed Pocahontas; "and in truth I rejoice to go with thee, and with the few words of their tongue that I have not forgotten to ask for thee the questions thou wouldst put to him. I, too, have questions to ask him."

When they had passed the young brave followed them, far off enough that Pocahontas's quick ear might not hear his step that would have been noiseless to the Englishman.

At the bank to which the pinnace was moored he sought cover back of a large boulder, his eyes never moving from the women before him. He watched them go on board, saw the English sailors rise to receive them, and heard the eager outcries of the squaw as she felt of their garments and went about the deck of the little craft, while Pocahontas explained as far as her own knowledge went, the meaning of anchor and sail, of cooking utensils and muskets. He saw Captain Argall open a small chest and hand out presents to the two women, Japezaws's squaw uttering loud cries of delight as beads and gaudy handkerchiefs were placed in her hands.

Claw-of-the-Eagle waited to see what would happen next. After an hour's watching he beheld the two women approach the side of the pinnace nearest the shore, the squaw in front. She sprang to the bank and ran lightly into the forest. Pocahontas had her foot on the gunwale to follow her when Captain Argall took hold of her arm.

"Come with us to Jamestown, Princess," he said; "we will welcome you for a visit."

Pocahontas's anger flared up. Never in her life had she been restrained by force. She wasted no time nor strength in entreaty, but sought to wrench herself away from him. But the Englishman held her firmly but gently, and while she struggled the sailors shoved the boat out into the stream.

Claw-of-the-Eagle rose that he might take better aim and shot an arrow at the Englishman. It hit the astounded captain on his leathern doublet, but did no more than knock the wind out of him.

"Shoot into the trees there," he commanded, still holding on to Pocahontas.

One of the sailors started to aim into the thicket at an unseen enemy, when Claw-of-the-Eagle, realizing that the boat was rapidly swinging out of his range, ran out on to an exposed bluff and notched a second arrow. Before it left the string, however, the bullet from the soldier's musket had hit him in the shoulder. As he fell Pocahontas uttered a cry of horror, for she had seen who her stricken defender was.



CHAPTER XVII

POCAHONTAS LOSES A FRIEND

It was the second night of Pocahontas's captivity. She had suffered no restraint further than that necessary to keep her from jumping overboard. Argall and the sailors treated her with all deference, both from policy and inclination. Yet she was very unhappy and lonely: she had always been so free to go and come that it was almost a physical pain to be imprisoned within the narrow limits of the pinnace. Several times she had tried to evade the vigilance of the sailors; but her cunning, which on shore would have shown her a way to escape, was useless on the unfamiliar boat. Her anger at Japezaws and his squaws flamed up anew every time she dwelt on their treachery. She went over in her mind the punishment she would beg her father to inflict upon them.

"Wait!" she called out; and the sailors wondered what she was saying as she stood there looking over the stern in the direction of the Patowomeke village, her eyes flashing, "wait until Nautauquas brings ye to my father to be tortured!"

Then before she had grown tired planning their fate, her thoughts flew to Claw-of-the-Eagle. Was he lying dead there in the forest? What a playmate and companion he had always been, she thought; how brave, how strong! Yet now he must be dead or surely he had managed to follow her.

By nightfall the boat was anchored in the centre of the stream, which here widened out into a small bay. Captain Argall, who had not known what to make of Claw-of-the-Eagle's attack, did not feel certain that Japezaws had not played him false. He had therefore made all speed possible the first night and the following day. Now his wearied men needed rest and, as no sign of pursuit appeared, he had granted them leave to sleep. Only one sailor in the bow was left on watch, but he, too, drowsed, to wake up with a start, when finding all well, he dropped off to sleep again.

Pocahontas lay alone in the stem, her head pillowed on a roll of sail cloth that brought it up to the level of the gunwale. Argall had done everything he could to make her comfortable and never even spoke to her except hat in hand and bowing low. Now she, too, had fallen asleep, her eyes wet with the tears she would not shed during the daylight. She dreamed she was again at Werowocomoco and that she had just risen from her sleeping-mat to run out into the moonlight as she so often did.

Suddenly a faint, faint sound half wakened her, a sound scarcely louder than the lapping of the water against the sides which had lulled her to sleep. She opened her eyes but did not move, and waited, tense with excitement. A fish flopped out of the water, then all was silent again and she closed her heavy eyes once more. Then it came again, not louder than the wind in the aspen trees on shore:

"Pocahontas!"

Raising herself to her elbow with a motion as quiet as a cat's, she peered into the dark water over the stern. A hand came up from the darkness and clasped her wrist. She needed no great light upon the features of the face below to know whose it was.

"Claw-of-the-Eagle," she whispered, "is it thou? I thought the white man's gun had killed thee, and I have been mourning for thee."

"I lay dead for an hour," he answered as he lifted himself up in the water and hung with both hands to the sides of the boat. "But it was well that I was wounded on the shoulder and not on the leg. The stiffness made me slow, like a bear that has been hurt in a trap. But I bound mud on the wound with my leggings and I have followed close behind thee along the shore all the way."

"I knew thou wouldst come after me if thou wert not killed," she whispered.

"Yea, I have come for thee, Pocahontas," and there was manly decision now in the youth's voice. "Waste no time. Drop down here beside me as quietly as if thou wert stalking a deer. We will swim under water until we are beyond reach of the white men's dull ears and before three days are passed we shall be at Powhata, where thy father now abideth."

The thought of all home meant made Pocahontas pause: the kindly interest of all her tribe in everything she did; the affection of her father and brothers; the haunts in the forest and on the river; the freedom of her daily existence. Here was her chance to return to them. If she did not take it, what lay ahead of her? A terror of the unknown overcame her for the first time. The knowledge that an old and tried friend was near was as grateful as a light shining before one on a dark night. Yet she answered:

"I can not go with thee, Claw-of-the-Eagle."

The young brave uttered a low murmur of astonishment.

"Dost thou not know," he asked, "that Japezaws hath betrayed thee; that thou art to be kept captive in Jamestown in order to force The Powhatan to do whatever the English desire of him?"

"Yes, I know. Captain Argall hath told me all."

"And yet thou dost hesitate? Art thou, the daughter of a mighty werowance, afraid to try to escape?"

She did not deign to reply to such a charge, but whispered instead:

"Hadst thou come last night I should have harkened to thee only too gladly. In truth, I had determined to escape myself this night, no matter what the difficulties might be. Pocahontas beareth a knife and knoweth how to use it. But to-day I have come to think otherwise, for there have been long hours in which to think. Thou knowest that captivity is as wearisome to me as to a wild dove; yet as I sat here alone with naught to do, I followed a trail in my mind that led to Jamestown, and so I am minded to go thither."

"But why?" asked Claw-of-the-Eagle.

"Because by going I believe I can serve both our nation and the English. My Brother, John Smith, said we must be friends, and I promised him e'er he left to watch ever over the welfare of his people. My father loveth me so much that in order to free me I think he will do as the English wish, and so I will go with Captain Argall that the strife may cease between them and us. But," and here her voice rose so that Claw-of-the-Eagle had to remind her of their danger by a pressure on the hand, "but I will not intercede for that traitor Japezaws and his crafty squaw. My father may wreak vengeance on them when he will."

Her voice, low as it was, had risen in her emotion, and the boy's keen hearing had caught the movement of a man's foot on the wooden deck. They kept still, breathless, for a moment; then as all was still again, Claw-of-the-Eagle asked sadly, in a tone that mourned as wind through the pine trees:

"Then thou wilt not come with me? I had built a lodge for thee, Matoaka, with a smoke hole wide enough to let in the whole moon thou lovest. My arrows had killed young deer and turkeys and I had smoked and hung meat for thee to last through all popanow (winter). A young maid is lonely till she follows her brave—all this I came to the village of Japezaws to pipe to thee. Now I have run wounded through the forests and swum the black stream to tell it to thee, and thou bidst me turn back alone. But if thou hast no wish to enter Claw-of-the-Eagle's lodge let him at least escort thee safely to the wigwam of thy father."

"I thank thee, Claw-of-the-Eagle, for all thou hast done," she whispered, "and all thou wouldst do for me. There is no braver warrior in the thirty tribes and no better hunter since Michabo. But I have listened to my manitou and he hath said to me, 'Remember the word thou gavest to thy white Brother.'"

Claw-of-the-Eagle knew that it was useless to plead and yet he pleaded: "Come back with me, Matoaka; what are the white men to thee and me?"