The Princess Pocahontas Part 22

[Ill.u.s.tration: Decorative]

CHAPTER XVIII

A BAPTISM IN JAMESTOWN

Very unhappy was Pocahontas the rest of the voyage to Jamestown.

Claw-of-the-Eagle had been dear to her as a brother, and she sorrowed for him greatly. It was forlorn to be away thus from her own people and among those whose ways and tongue were strange to her; and she longed for Nautauquas, whom she had not seen for several moons.

News of their coming had outrun them, and all of Jamestown was at the wharf to greet them. Captain Argall stepped ash.o.r.e and explained that he had brought generous stores and what was of far greater value, the daughter of Powhatan. Sir Thomas Dale, in all the bravery of his best purple doublet and new bright Cordova leather boots, came forward and doffing his plumed hat, said:

"Welcome, Princess, and be not angry with us if we in all courtesy constrain thee to abide with us awhile. Let it not irk thee to visit us again, to stay for a few days with those who have been thy debtors since the time thou didst save the life of Captain Smith."

Pocahontas, whose anger had been rising at the treachery practised on her by j.a.pezaws and Argall, had intended to show in her manner how she resented it; but the name of Captain Smith disarmed her. She recalled her white Brother's parting words to her.

She would befriend his colony, as she had ever done. So she smiled at Sir Thomas and spoke to those about whom she knew and let them show her the way to the house that they chose for her use, a few paces from the Governor's. Mistress Lettice, the wife of one of the gentlemen, who was to occupy it with her, laid out some of her own garments in case the Indian maiden should care to change; and Pocahontas, forgetting the dangers and sadness of the past days, laughed with amus.e.m.e.nt as she tried on farthingale and wide skirt.

"They are sending messengers to thy father. King Powhatan," the Englishwoman said as she showed Pocahontas how to adjust a starched ruff that scratched her neck so that she made a grimace. "They will tell him that thou art here, and then surely in his anxiety to see thee again, he will grant what Sir Thomas desires: that he deliver up our men and the arms he hath taken and give us three hundred quarters of corn. Perchance thou wouldst like to send some word of thine own to thy father. If so be, there is an Indian boy who hath brought fish to trade, and he can bear it for thee."

"Bring him to me, I pray thee," said Pocahontas, speaking slowly the unaccustomed English words.

She was looking at herself in the ebony-framed mirror that hung opposite the door, much interested in her strange appearance, when the Indian boy entered, following Mistress Lettice. She saw his face in the gla.s.s and recognized him as the son of a Powhatan chief. She turned and faced him, but knew that he did not recognize her. He looked no further than her clothes and so believed her an Englishwoman. It was a rare amus.e.m.e.nt, she thought, and she watched him eagerly to see his surprise when he should find out his mistake. She was well rewarded by his puzzled and astonished expression when she called out to him:

"Little Squirrel!" When she herself had stopped laughing, she added: "Take this sad message to old Wansutis. Tell her that her son, Claw-of-the-Eagle, hath met his death bravely and that Pocahontas mourns him with her."

Then she dismissed the boy. As he walked away she remembered that she desired him to bear also a special word to Nautauquas, so she started to run and call him back. But the unaccustomed weight of her clothes and shoes prevented her and she began to pull them off her even before she reached the house, crying out:

"Nay, I will not prison myself thus; give me back mine own garments,"

and she breathed deep breaths of satisfaction when she had resumed them.

Had the manner of her coming to Jamestown been otherwise, with no treachery and no compulsion which hurt her pride, Pocahontas would have much enjoyed her stay and a closer view of the ways of the English. As it was, she was restlessly awaiting the message her father would return to the demands of the colonists. The next day the messengers came back, bringing with them the Englishmen who had been held captive by Powhatan and some of the arms. The werowance promised, they reported, that when his daughter was restored to him he would give the corn which the white men asked for.

This answer did not satisfy the Council, and day by day there were parleyings in which the white men and the red men sought to constrain or evade each other. Each side recognized the value of Pocahontas as a hostage. She was not now unhappy. Even if the colonists had not done their best to requite with kindness all the care she had manifested for their welfare, policy would have led them to treat her with every consideration. She was made welcome everywhere, and she went from the guard house to that of the Governor, asking questions, eager to learn all details, from the way to fire off a musket to the heating of the sealing wax and the making of a great red seal which Master John Rolfe, Secretary and Recorder General of the Colony, affixed to all the doc.u.ments sent to the Company in London.

He explained everything to her, taking pains to choose the simplest words, because he found a keen pleasure in watching her dark eyes brighten when she began to comprehend something which had puzzled her, and because her laughter and quick coming and going in the masculine atmosphere of the council room was a most agreeable change from its usual dull calm. He was a widower and, though he had got over the sadness of the loss of his wife, he still missed a woman's companionship. So he was nothing loath to follow when Pocahontas commanded one day:

"Come with me about the town and answer more of my questions. I have stored away as many as a squirrel stores nuts for popanow--what keeps the ship from floating with the tide down to the great water? Why doth that man sit with his legs before him?"--and she pointed to a carpenter who had been imprisoned in the stocks in punishment for theft--"And why?"--...

And Rolfe found himself kept as busy as Mr. Squirrel himself in cracking her questions for her.

She soon got over her awe of the white men, judging, now that she had a closer view of them, that they were in many ways like her own people.

And seeing that her lightheartedness was pleasant to them, she teased and joked with them.

"Wilt thou eat a persimmon?" she asked Rolfe, smiling at the trap she was laying as she stood on tiptoe to pick one from a branch above her.

And Rolfe bit into the golden fruit, not knowing that the persimmon till ripened by frost is for the eye only. She laughed with glee as she saw his mouth all puckered up until he believed it would never unpucker again.

"I'll pay thee for this some day," he threatened in mock anger as soon as he could speak; but she only laughed the more.

One of the reasons that Pocahontas was content to remain in Jamestown was that she hoped to get news of Captain Smith's return. Every day she would ask, sometimes Mistress Lettice, sometimes Sir Thomas Dale, or anyone with whom she spoke:

"When cometh back the Captain? I am longing to see my Brother."

And one told her one thing, one another, some lying because it was easier; some from sheer ignorance said they had heard that John Smith had gone back to fight the Turks; that he grew fat and lazy in his English home; that he was exploring further up the coast; that he might be expected at Jamestown with the next ship. And Pocahontas, believing those who said the last because she wished this to be the truth, was not unhappy to wait among strangers that she might be the first to welcome him.

The spot in the town which most excited her curiosity was the church.

The colonists had now replaced the first rude hut by a substantial building with a tower. The bells that called Jamestown to daily prayers had a weird fascination for the Indian girl. They seemed to speak a language she could not understand. Nor could she understand the ceremony which she observed, wide-eyed, of the kneeling men and women and the white-robed clergyman who stretched out his arms over them.

"What doth it signify?" she queried; and Rolfe, remembering that the conversion of the heathen was one of the reasons given by Europe for sending colonies to the New World, tried to explain the mysteries of his faith to her. But he found it too difficult a task, and besought the Reverend Thomas Alexander Whitaker to undertake it in his stead.

This the zealous and gentle minister of the Gospel gladly consented to do. Here was the great opportunity he had desired since his coming to Virginia--to make an Indian convert so notable that this conversion might bring others in its train. Moreover the maiden herself interested him. But it was not so easy to go about it. Pocahontas's knowledge of English did not extend beyond the simplest expressions; and he found it necessary to translate the long and abstruse theological dogmas into familiar terms. He had almost despaired of making her comprehend until he recalled how his Master had taught in parables. So he retold the incidents of His life in stories which held the Indian maiden spellbound. He showed her pictures in heavy leathern-bound volumes, and tried with less success to explain the meaning of the daily religious services he conducted in the church.

"Why do ye put always flowers on that table?" she asked, pointing to the vases on the altar which the Governor bade keep always filled with fresh blossoms as long as the forests and river bank could supply them. "What good hath thy G.o.d of them?"

"Dost thou not take delight in the sunshine. Princess?" replied the priest as they sat in the cool shade of the darkened church looking out through the open door at waving green branches and the river beyond. "I have beheld thee lift up thine arms on a fair day when the swift white clouds moved across the blue heavens as if thou wouldst embrace the whole wide earth. Why dost thou take pleasure in such things?"

"Because," hesitated the maiden, seeking for a reason, "because they make me happy."

"Because," he added, "they are beautiful. And G.o.d who created all this beauty rejoiceth too in it--in green fields and n.o.ble trees, in lovely maidens, strong men and happy children. Therefore, in token thereof, we place beautiful flowers upon His table."

"And delighteth he not in incantations of shamans and jossakeed (inspired prophets) and in self-torture?" she queried.

"Nay," he answered; "such things are of the Devil; our G.o.d is love.

Ponder upon the difference."

And Pocahontas did think much of what he told her. Her spirit was maturing in this new atmosphere like a quick-growing vine climbing higher each day. Dr. Whitaker's own fatherly kindness to her and to all the colony became for her the symbol of the tenderness of the G.o.d of whom he taught her. Then, too, this strange new deity was the G.o.d of her Brother, John Smith; and whatever in any way was dear to him she wanted to make her own.

For weeks the instruction continued and at last Dr. Whitaker told Sir Thomas Dale that he believed the Indian princess was now sufficiently impressed with the teachings of Christianity to be baptized. So Sir Thomas, meeting her one afternoon as she stood by the wharf watching men unload a ship but newly arrived from England, began:

"Good even, Princess, I rejoice at the news Dr. Whitaker hath even now imparted to me, that he hath instructed thee fully in the teachings of our blessed faith, and that thou hast shown wisdom and comprehension.

The time hath therefore arrived for thee to bear witness before man to the truth and to accept the blessed sacrament of baptism at his hands and to swear publicly that thou wilt have naught more to do with the heathen G.o.ds whom thy people ignorantly worship."

"I will not give them up," Pocahontas cried out in anger such as she had not shown for many a day; and to Sir Thomas's amazement, she turned her back upon his presence and sped, swift as a fawn, into the thicket which still covered a portion of the island.

There she lay upon the ground, panting with emotion and pa.s.sionately going over her arguments: "Why should I forsake the Okee of my fathers?

Why should I hate what my brothers serve? Why should I prefer this G.o.d of the strangers?"

She did not know that a sudden attack of homesickness was the princ.i.p.al cause of this outburst. She was longing to sit at her father's knee, to hunt with Nautauquas; and she wondered if they had ceased to care for her that they left her to stay among the strangers.

Here, at sunset, Dr. Whitaker, set upon her track by the startled Sir Thomas, found her and seating himself beside her, he talked to her gently, not finding fault with her loyalty to her people and their beliefs, but explaining how they had never had the chance to hear what she was being taught, and how by acknowledging the Christians' G.o.d, she might lead those she loved to do the same and to benefit by His great gifts.

Not in one day did the clergyman convince her; but by the time April had come Pocahontas eagerly consented to her baptism. Clothed by Mistress Lettice in a simple white gown free from ruff and farthingale, with her long black hair hanging down her back, Pocahontas walked to the little church filled with all the inhabitants and a few Indians from the mainland who wondered what it all meant; and while the bells rang softly in the soft spring air, Pocahontas, the first of her race, was baptized into the Christian faith, with the new name of Rebecca.