The Princess Pocahontas Part 26

"Where is my child?" cried Pocahontas. "What hast thou done with him?

And so it was thou who alone in all the world didst dare steal him from me. What hast thou done with my son? Speak!"

The old woman did not struggle under the firm grasp of the young strong hands. She stood still as if alone, staring into the flames that reddened the circle of trees as if they had been stained with blood.

"What hast thou done with my son?" cried Pocahontas again.

"What hast thou done with _my_ son?" asked the old woman, without turning her head to look at Pocahontas.

"Thy son! Claw-of-the-Eagle? Why! I sent thee word many moons ago, Wansutis, that he was dead."

"Hadst thou loved him he had not died."

"I loved him as a sister, Wansutis; my fate lay not in my hands. But Claw-of-the-Eagle is dead, and we mourn him, thou and I"--here she loosened her grasp on the old woman's shoulder, "but my son is alive unless--"

Here a dreadful possibility made her shake like an aspen.

"What hast thou done with my son, Wansutis? What didst thou want with him?"

Wansutis, who was now crouched down looking at the heart of the fire, began to chant as if alone:

"Wansutis's son died in battle. No stronger, fiercer brave was there in all the thirty tribes, and Wansutis's lodge was empty and there was none to hunt for her, to slay deer that she might feed upon fresh meat. Then Wansutis saw a prisoner with strong body, though it was yet small, and Wansutis had a new son, a swift hunter, whose face was ruddy by the firelight, whose presence in her lodge made Wansutis's slumbers quiet.

And this son wanted a maiden for his squaw and went forth to play upon his pipes before her. But the maiden would not listen and the river and the maiden killed the brave son of Wansutis, and again her lodge was lonely."

She ceased for a moment, then as if she were reading the words in the flames, she sang more slowly:

"I am old, saith old Wansutis, yet I'll live for many harvests. I will seek another son now; I will bring him to my wigwam. He shall watch me and protect me; he will cheer me in the winters."

Pocahontas interrupted her:

"That then is the reason thou didst steal my child. Thou shalt not keep him; he is not for thy lodge. He goeth with his father and with me to be brought up in the houses of the English."

There came a cry from the forest, the same cry she had heard in her dreams. Without an instant's doubt, Pocahontas sprang into the blackness and in a few moments came back with the baby in her arms. She squatted down by the fire, and felt it over feverishly until she had convinced herself that it was unharmed.

Wansutis now rose.

"Farewell, Princess," she said. "Wansutis will now be returning to her lodge."

Now that she had her child safe again, Pocahontas's kind heart began to speak:

"Wansutis, thou knowest I cannot let thee have my son; but if thou wilt I will pray my father to give thee the next young brave he captures that thou mayst no longer be lonely."

"I will seek no more sons," answered the old woman; "perchance he might set off for a far land and leave me even as thy father's daughter leaveth him."

"But I will return to him," protested Pocahontas.

"Dost thou know that?" the old woman asked, leaning down and peering directly into Pocahontas's face. Her gaze was so full of hatred that Pocahontas drew back in terror.

"I see a ship"--Wansutis began to chant again--"a ship that sails for many days towards the rising sun; but I never see a ship that sails to the sunset. I see a deer from the free forests and it is fettered and its neck is hung with wampum and flowers; but the deer seeks in vain to escape to its bed of ferns in the woodland. I see a bird that is caught where the lodges are closer together than the pebbles on the seash.o.r.e; but I never see the bird fly free above their lodge tops. I hear the crying of an orphan child; but the mother lieth where she cannot still it."

Pocahontas gazed in horrible fascination at the old woman who, with another harsh laugh, vanished into the darkness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Decorative]

CHAPTER XXII

POCAHONTAS IN ENGLAND

It was an eager, happy Pocahontas that set sail with her husband. Master Rolfe, her child and last--but not in his own estimation--Sir Thomas Dale. With them, too, went Uttamatomakkin, a chief whom Powhatan sent expressly to observe the English and their ways in their own land.

Everything interested Pocahontas on the voyage: the ship herself, the hoisting and furling of sails in calms and tempests, the chanteys of the sailors as they worked, the sight of spouting whales and, as they neared the English coast, the magnificence of a large ship-of-war, a veteran, so declared the captain, of the fleet which went so bravely forth to meet the Spanish Armada. During the long evenings on deck Rolfe told her stories of real deeds of English history and fancied romances of poets; and all were equally wonderful to her.

She could scarcely believe after she had sailed so many weeks over the unchanging ocean, where there were not even the signs to go by that she could read in the trackless forest, that there was land again beyond all the water. It was a marvel which no amount of explanations could simplify that men should be able to guide ships back and forth across this waste. Perhaps this more than any of the wonders she was to see later was what made her esteem the white men's genius most.

And then one day a grey cloud rested on the eastern horizon. Pocahontas saw a new look in her husband's face as he caught sight of it.

"England!" he cried, and then he lifted little Thomas to his shoulder and bade him, "Look at thy father's England."

Even before they stepped ash.o.r.e at Plymouth Pocahontas's impressions of the country began. On board the ship came officers from the Virginia Company to greet her and put themselves and the exchequer of the Company at her disposal. Was she not the daughter of their Indian ally, a monarch of whose kingdom and power they possessed but the most confused idea. They had arranged, they said, suitable lodgings for Lady Rebecca, Master Rolfe and their infant in London and--with much waving of plumed hats and bowing--they would attend in every manner to her comfort and amus.e.m.e.nt.

These men were different from any Pocahontas had ever seen; the colonists were all, w.i.l.l.y nilly, workers, or at least adventure lovers.

These comfortable citizens were of a type as new to her as she to them.

As they rode slowly on their way to London at every mile of the road she cried out with delighted interest and questioned Rolfe without ceasing about the timbered and stuccoed cottages, the beautiful hedges, the rich farms and paddocks filled with horses and cattle. At midday and at night when they stopped at the inns, she was eager to examine everything, from the still-room to the fragrant attics where bunches of herbs hung from the rafters. Yet even in her girlish eagerness she bore herself with a dignity that never allowed the simplest to doubt that, in spite of her dark skin, she was a lady of high birth.

"Ah! John," she said, "this is so fair a land; I know not how thou couldst leave it. I can scarcely wait when I lie abed at night for the morn to come. There is ever something new, and new things, thou knowest, have ever been delightful to my spirit."

"And to mine also, Rebecca," he answered; "for that reason did I seek Wingandacoa and rejoiced in its strangeness, even as thou dost rejoice in the strangeness of my country."

The nearer they drew to London the more there was to see. The highway was filled with those coming and going from town; merchants, farmers with their wares, butchers, travelling artisans, tinkers, peddlers, gypsies, great ladies on horseback or in coaches, who stared at Pocahontas, and gentlemen who questioned the servants about her. And Pocahontas asked Rolfe about all of them, of their condition, their manner of living and what their homes were like within.

When they reached the outskirts of London the crowds increased so that Pocahontas turned to Rolfe and asked:

"Why do all the folk run hither and thither? Is there news of the return of a war party or will they celebrate some great festival?" And she could hardly believe that it was only a gathering such as was to be seen every day. However, as soon as those in the crowd caught sight of her they began to press more closely to gaze at her and at Uttamatomakkin, who looked down at them as unconcernedly as if he had been accustomed to such a sight all his life. Officers of the Virginia Company appeared just then with a coach, into which they conducted Pocahontas, Rolfe and little Thomas, so that they escaped from the curiosity of the crowd.

The days that followed were filled with strange and new enjoyments.

Mantuamakers and milliners brought their wares, and Lady Rebecca soon began to distinguish what was best in what they had to offer. She drove in the parks, was rowed down the river in gorgeous barges, had her portrait painted in a gold-trimmed red robe with white collar and cuffs and a hat with a gold band upon it, received the great ladies who came out of curiosity to see for themselves what an Indian princess might be like. All of them had only kind things to say about "the gentle Lady Rebecca."

The Bishop of London was in especial interested in this heathen n.o.blewoman who had become a Christian. He was her escort on many occasions and decided to give a great ball in her honour.

"What will they do, Master Bishop?" she asked of the dignitary who had grown as fond of this new lamb in his flock as if she were his own daughter. "What will all the ladies do at a ball?"

"They will dance."