The Princess Pocahontas Part 19

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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "NAY, NAY," CRIED POCAHONTAS, "THOU MUST NOT GO"]

"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 G.o.d to Matoaka, a G.o.d 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 pa.s.s.

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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s that I will not peer through the forests. .h.i.therward 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 pa.s.sed 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Decorative]

CHAPTER XVI

CAPTAIN ARGALL TAKES A PRISONER

And in the three years that had pa.s.sed 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 ma.s.sacre 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 ma.s.sacre, 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.

j.a.pezaws, 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."