The Princess Pocahontas Part 12

"Ah!" breathed Pocahontas deeply. For once in her life she was getting her fill of adventures.

"I was given as a slave to another princess--Tragabizzanda--in the City of Constantinople; then I was sent to Tartary, where I was most cruelly used. One day I fell upon the Bashaw of Nolbrits, who ill-treated me, and I slew him. I clothed myself in his garments and escaped into the desert and finally after many strange adventures I reached again a land where I had friends. Then--"

"Tell me of the princess," interrupted Pocahontas. "Did she ill-use thee also?"

"Nay, in truth, she was all kindness to me," replied Smith, his eye kindling at the remembrance of the Turkish lady who had aided him. "She was very beautiful, with lovely garments and rich jewels," he added, thinking to interest the girl with descriptions of her finery, "and I owe her many thanks."

"Was she more beautiful than I?" asked Pocahontas, her brows knitting angrily.

"She was very different," the amused Englishman answered. It was scarcely possible for him to consider these savages as being real human creatures, to be compared even with the Turks; yet he did not wish to hurt the feelings of one who had done so much for him. "She was a grown woman," he added, "and therefore it boots not to compare her with the child thou art."

"I am no child. I am a woman!" cried Pocahontas, springing up in a fury and rushed off like a whirlwind towards the forest.

John Smith looked after her in dismay. If he had turned his only friend against him then was he indeed in a sad plight!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Decorative]

CHAPTER X

THE LODGE IN THE WOODS

Neither the rest of that day nor the next had Smith any speech with Pocahontas. True it was that she came accompanied by squaws and children, all eager to serve as cupbearers in order to observe the paleface closely. But she put down the food beside him and did not linger.

By the middle of the second day Smith found himself less an object of interest. Everyone in Werowocomoco had been to gaze at him and the older chiefs had sat and talked with him; but the Englishman could not discover what their opinion in regard to his coming or his future might be. Now there seemed to be something afoot which was engaging the attention of the braves who congregated together before the long lodge.

Had it anything to do with his own fate, the captive wondered. The children, too, had found other things to interest them. He saw them, their little red bodies glistening in the sun, playing with the dogs or pretending they were a war party creeping through a hostile country.

Smith missed them peering about the opening of his lodge, half amused, half frightened, when he attempted to make friends.

He leaned idly against the side of the wigwam, watching two squaws not far away who were tanning a deerskin and cutting it in strips for thread. Would the time ever come again, he wondered, when he would behold a white woman sewing or spinning?

He saw Pocahontas leave her lodge, but instead of coming in his direction, she ran towards the wigwams that skirted the forest and was soon out of sight. He could not see that a young Indian boy, astounded to catch sight of her in that unaccustomed part of the village, went to meet her.

"Is Wansutis by her hearth?" asked Pocahontas.

"She is," Claw-of-the-Eagle replied, and walked on beside her with no further word.

Pocahontas's heart was beating a little faster than usual. Wansutis still excited a feeling of awe and discomfort in the courageous child; she could not help experiencing a sort of terror when in her presence.

Nevertheless she had now come of her own accord to ask the old woman for aid.

Claw-of-the-Eagle, though he would have bitten his tongue off rather than acknowledge his curiosity, was most eager to learn what had brought the daughter of Powhatan to his adopted mother's lodge. He entered it with Pocahontas and pretended to be busying himself with stringing his bows in order to have an excuse for staying.

"Wansutis," began Pocahontas, standing in the sunshine of the entrance, to the old woman who sat smoking in the darkest part of the lodge, "thou hast the knowledge of all the herbs of the fields and of the forests, those that harm and those that help. Is it not so?"

The wrinkled squaw looked up, a drawn smile upon her lips, and said:

"And so Princess Pocahontas comes to old Wansutis for a love potion."

"Nay," cried the girl angrily, coming closer, "not so; I desire of thee something quite different--herbs that will make a man forget."

"The same herb for both," snapped the squaw; "for whom wilt thou brew it, for thine adopted son, thou who art no squaw and too young to have a son? I have no such herb, maiden, and if I had, thinkest thou I had not given it to Claw-of-the-Eagle to drink. Speak to her, son, and tell her if a man ever forgets."

Pocahontas turned a questioning glance on him and the young brave answered it:

"My thoughts are great and speedy travellers, Pocahontas; they take long journeys backwards to my father's and mother's people. They wander among old trails in the forests and they meet old friends by the side of burned-out campfires. Yet, when like weary hunters who have been seeking game all day, they return at night to their lodge, so mine return in grat.i.tude to Wansutis. For she hath not sought to hinder them from travelling old trails, even as she hath not bound my feet to her lodge pole to keep them from straying."

"And if she had not left thee free," queried Pocahontas, "what wouldst thou have done?" Somehow, captivity and the thought of captives had suddenly become of extreme interest to the girl.

"I know not, Princess," answered the boy after pondering a moment, "yet had not my father and mother been dead I feel certain I should have sought to escape to them, even had thy father set all his guards about the village. But they were no more, and our wigwam afar off was empty; and so my heart finds rest in a new home and I gladly obey a new mother."

"Is it then so hard to forget an old lodge and other ways?" pondered the girl. "It seems to me that each day among strangers would be the beginning of a new life, that it would be pleasant to know I could not foresee what would come to pa.s.s before nightfall. Why," she queried, looking eagerly at both the old woman and the boy, "why should this paleface desire to return to the island where they sicken and starve while here he hath food in plenty?"

"Wait till thou thyself art among strangers away from thine own people,"

cried Wansutis sternly, and then she turned her back upon the young people and began to mutter.

"So thou hast no drink of forgetfulness to give me?" asked Pocahontas, hesitating at the entrance, to which she had retreated; but the old woman did not answer; and Pocahontas walked off slowly, meditating as she went, while Claw-of-the-Eagle, bow in hand, gazed after her.

It had grown dark and John Smith, his legs cramped with long sitting, stretched himself out by the side of the fire in his lodge into which he had thrown some twigs, so that the embers which had smouldered all day now blazed up brightly. The cheerful crackling was welcome, it seemed to him to speak in English words of home and comfort, not the heathenish jargon he had listened to perforce for several weeks. Not only was it a companion but a protection. While it blazed he might be seized and put to death, but at least he should see his enemies. He missed Pocahontas for her own sake, not only because her staying away argued ill for his safety. Grat.i.tude was not the only reason for his interest in her: she seemed to him the freest, brightest creature he had ever come across, as much a part of the wilderness nature as a squirrel or a bird. Like all cultured Englishmen of his day, he had read many books and poems about shepherdesses in Arcadia and princesses of enchanted realms; but never yet had any writer, not even the great Spenser or Sir Philip Sidney, imagined in their words so free and wild and sylvan a creature as this interesting Indian maiden.

His thoughts were disturbed by the entrance of two Indians. "We are come," they said, "at The Powhatan's bidding to take thee to his lodge in the wood."

He knew not what this order might mean, yet he was glad that come what would, the monotony of his captivity was broken. He rose quickly and followed them through the village, each lodge of which had its ghostly curl of smoke ascending through the centre towards the dark sky. Within some of the wigwams he could see the fire and sitting around it families eating before lying down to sleep. Then they left the palisades of Werowocomoco behind them and came out into the forest, to a lodge as large as that in which he had first been led before Powhatan.

This one, however, was differently arranged. It was divided into two parts, separated by dark hanging mats that permitted no light to pa.s.s through. Into the smaller apartment, to give it such a name. Smith was ushered, and there the two Indians, after stirring up the fire and throwing on fresh logs, left him alone.

Not long, however, did Smith imagine himself the lodge's only inhabitant. The sound of m.u.f.fled feet, even though they moved softly, betrayed the presence of a number of persons on the other side of the mat. His ears, his only sentinels, reported that the unseen foes had seated themselves and then, after a short silence, he heard a voice begin a low, weird chant. He could not understand the words, but from the monotonous shaking of a rattle and the steps that seemed to be moving in some dance round and round from one part of the room to the other, Smith was certain that it was a shaman beginning the chant for some sacred ceremony. Then one by one the different voices joined in, uttering hideous shrieks, and the ground shook with the shuffling of many feet. The sounds were enough to terrify the stoutest heart, and Smith had no doubt but that their song was a rejoicing over his coming death. Perhaps Powhatan, he thought, had only pretended to grant his daughter's request, having planned all along to put an end to him, and when the boy, who had doubtless been sent by him, had not succeeded, he had probably determined to kill him here. Or perhaps Pocahontas, now in anger with him, had withdrawn her claims to his life and left him to her father's vengeance.

The noise grew louder and more fiendish in character and the Englishman saw the corner of the mat begin to wave, to bulge as if a man were b.u.t.ting his head against it to raise it. Then he saw it lifted and in came a creature more hideous than Smith ever dreamed could exist.

Painted all in red pocone, with breast tattooed in black, wearing no garment save a breech-clout and a gigantic headdress of feathers, sh.e.l.ls and beads, he straightened himself to his great height. A horrible mask, distorting human lineaments, covered the face, and a medicine-bag of otter skin hung from his back and dangling from one arm as an ornament hung the dried hand of an enemy long since dead. On account of his stature and in spite of the mask, Smith recognized The Powhatan, and drew himself up proudly to meet his fate.

Behind their werowance now swarmed the other braves and chieftains, two hundred in all, and all with masks that made them as fearful, thought John Smith, as a troop of devils from h.e.l.l.

To his astonishment, they did not fall upon him and in their shrieking he thought he could even distinguish the word "friend." The Powhatan alone of them all approached him, saying:

"Have no fear, my son; we are not come to harm thee. The ceremony which thou hast heard was to call Okee to witness to the friendship we have sworn thee. Henceforth are we and thou as of one tribe. No longer art thou a prisoner but free to come and go as thy brothers here, aye, even to return to thy comrades on the island if thou so desirest. When thou hast arrived there send unto me two of those great guns that spit forth fire and death that my name may become a still greater terror to mine enemies, and send to me also a grindstone such as thou hast told me of, that my squaws may use it for crushing maize. I ask not these gifts for naught. A great chief giveth ever gifts in return. Therefore I present to thee for thine own the land called Capahosick, where thou mayst live and build thee a lodge and take a squaw to till thy fields for thee.

Moreover, I, The Powhatan, I, Wahunsunakuk, will esteem thee as mine own son from this day forth."

It was difficult for Smith during this discourse not to betray his astonishment. First came the relief at learning that he was not to be killed immediately and then the wonderful news that he was free to go to Jamestown. And if The Powhatan and his people had sworn friendship to him, would that not mean that through him the colony should be saved? He longed to know what had brought about this sudden change in his fate, but he could not ask. In as stately a manner as that of the werowance--so at variance with his appearance--and with the best words at his command, he spoke his thanks.

"I thank thee, great Powhatan, for thy words of kindness and the good news thou bringest me. In truth if thou wilt be to me a father, I will be to thee a son, and there shall be peace between Werowocomoco and Jamestown. If thou wilt send men with me to show me the way they shall return with presents for thee."

Powhatan gave certain orders and twelve men stepped forward and laid aside their sacrificial masks and announced themselves ready to accompany the paleface. Smith had not imagined that he could leave that night, but he was so eager to be off that he lost no time in his farewells.

They set forth into the forest which at first was not dense, and along its edge were clearings where the summer's maize had grown. Then the trees grew closer together, and to Smith there appeared no path between them, but his guides strode quickly along with no hesitation, though the night was a dark one. Six of the Indians went in front of him and six behind. There was no talking, only the faint sound from the Englishman's boots and his stumbling against trunks or rocks broke the silence. There was little chance of an enemy's coming so near to the camp of The Powhatan, nevertheless the Indians observed the usual caution.