The Princess Pocahontas Part 27

"Dance!" exclaimed Pocahontas in amazement, who had never seen any other kind of dancing than that which she herself, clad in scant garments, had been wont to practice before she became the wife of an Englishman. This, she now knew, was not of a character suited for English ladies. So, some days later, watching the stately measures and the low reverences of ladies and their cavaliers, Pocahontas wondered what pleasure they could find in such an amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Perchance, though," she suggested to the good Bishop, "it is some religious ceremony which I know not."

The Bishop laughed so at this idea that Pocahontas could not help laughing, too, though she did not understand what was funny in her speech.

After the dance was over the ladies came to be presented to Lady Rebecca. They did not know what they ought to talk to the stranger about; but one of them in a dull mouse-colored tabby, with sad-colored ribbons, remarked languidly:

"What a fine day we are having."

"Fine!" exclaimed Pocahontas, looking up at the grey sky through the window, which to be sure had not dropped any rain for twenty-four hours, "but the sun is not shining. I should think here in England ye would wear your gayest garments to brighten up the landscape."

"Then the Lady Rebecca doth not like our country?" queried the dame in grey.

"Ah, but yea. In truth it pleaseth me mightily, all but the dark skies.

And they tell me that is because of the smoke of the city."

Then Pocahontas's eyes caught sight of an older woman whom Rolfe was escorting towards her. There was something about her appearance that was very pleasing. She was a little above medium height, with hair silvered in front and with cheeks as full of color as the roses she carried in her hands. Pocahontas felt at once that here was a woman whom she could love. Her manner was as dignified as that of any lady in the a.s.semblage, but there was a heartiness in her voice and in her glance which made Pocahontas feel at home as she had not before felt in England.

"This is Lady De La Ware, whose husband, thou knowest, Rebecca, was Governor of our Colony," said Rolfe, "and she hath brought these English roses to thee." Then he strolled off, leaving the two women together.

"They are very beautiful, thy flowers," said Pocahontas, smiling at them and at their giver, "and sweeter than the blossoms that grow in my land."

"Yet those are wonderful, too. I have heard of many glorious trees and vines which grow there and I would that I might see them."

"If thou wilt cross the ocean with us when we return, I will show thee many things that would be as strange to thee as thy land is to me. I would take thee to my father, Powhatan, and he would give dances in thine honour that would not be"--and she laughed again at the thought--"like the ball my Lord Bishop giveth me."

Lady De La Ware smiled, too. She had been told something about the Indian customs.

"Perhaps some day thou shalt take me to thy father's court; but now I am come to take thee to that of our Queen. She hath expressed her desire to see thee shortly. A letter which was written her by Captain John Smith about thee hath made her all the more eager to do honour to one who hath ever befriended the English."

"Captain John Smith hath written to the Queen about me?" said Pocahontas, marvelling.

"In truth, and since his words seemed to me worthy of remembrance, I have kept them in my mind." He begins:

"'If ingrat.i.tude be a deadly poyson to all honest vertues, I must be guiltie of that crime if I should omit any meanes to be thankfull. So it is that some ten years ago being in Virginia, and taken prisoner by the power of Powhatan, their chief King, I received from this great savage exceeding great courtesy, especially from his son, Nautauquas, the most manliest, comeliest, boldest spirit I ever saw in a savage, and his sister, Pocahontas, the King's most dear and well beloved daughter, being but a child of twelve or thirteen years of age, whose compa.s.sionate pitiful heart, of my desperate estate, gave me much cause to respect her--she hazarded the beating out of her own brains to save mine ... the most and least I can do is to tell you this, because none so oft tried it as myself, and the rather being of so great a spirit, however her stature, if she should not be well received, seeing this Kingdom may rightly have a Kingdom by her means--' And much more there was, Lady Rebecca, which I cannot now recall."

Lady De La Ware did not know that Pocahontas believed Smith dead, and Pocahontas, not imagining anything else, thought Smith must have written this letter from Jamestown before he died; and her heart grew warm thinking how, even dying, he had done what he could for her happiness on the mere chance of her going to England. The truth of the matter was that Smith was then at Plymouth, making ready to start on an expedition to New England; and though he did not expect to see Pocahontas, he wished England, and first of all England's Queen, to know what they owed this Indian girl.

It happened not long after that "La Belle Sauvage," as the Londoners sometimes called Pocahontas, and Rolfe were being entertained at a fair country seat. An English girl, much of the age of her guest, whose curiosity about the ways of the Indians was restrained only by her courtesy, had been showing her through the beautiful old garden. They had talked of Virginia, and Mistress Alicia coaxed:

"Wilt thou not take me with thee. Lady Rebecca, when thou returnest thither?

"But see," and she peered through an opening in the high yew hedge, "yonder cometh Master Rolfe with a party of gentlemen. Oh! one of them is a brave figure of a man, though he weareth not such fine clothes as some of the others. By my troth! 'tis Captain John Smith, and of course he cometh to greet thee. I would I might stay to hear what ye two old friends have to say to each other."

It seemed to Pocahontas that hours elapsed during the few minutes she was alone after Mistress Alicia left her, while her husband was guiding her guests to her through the garden's winding mazes. How could Smith be alive when she knew that he was dead? Even as she caught in the distance the sound of his voice, she asked herself if in truth she had ever heard of his death from anyone but the councillors in Jamestown.

The well-known voice was no longer weak as when she had last heard it bid her farewell. There they were, the gentlemen all bowing to her but remaining in the background, while Rolfe came forward with Smith.

"I have brought thee an old friend, Rebecca," he said.

Pocahontas saluted him, but words were impossible.

John Smith afterwards wrote concerning this interview:

"After a modest salutation, without any word, she turned about, obscured her face, as not seeming well contented, and in that humor her husband with divers others, we all left her two or three hours."

Seeing that she preferred to be alone, the men departed to talk over the affairs of the Virginia Colony since Smith had left Jamestown.

Pocahontas, sitting quietly on a garden bench near the carp pond, went over in her thought all that had taken place in her own life since then.

Then she saw him coming towards her again, alone, and she stretched out her hand to him.

"My father," she cried, "dost thou remember the old days in Wingandacoa when thou earnest first to Werowocomoco and wert my prisoner?"

"I remember well. Lady Rebecca," he said, leaning down to kiss her hand, "and I am ever thy most grateful debtor."

"Call me not by that strange name. Matoaka am I for thee as always. Dost thou remember when I came at night through the forest to warn thee?"

"I remember, Matoaka; how could I forget it?"

"Dost thou remember the day when, lying wounded before thy door, thou didst make me promise to be ever a friend to Jamestown and the English?"

"I have thought of it many a day."

"I have kept my promise, Father, have I not?"

"n.o.bly, Matoaka; but it is not meet that thou shouldst call me father."

Then Pocahontas tossed her head emphatically, and this gesture brought back to Smith the bright young Indian maiden who, for a moment, had seemed to him disguised by the stately clothes of an English matron.

"Thou didst promise Powhatan," she cried, "what was thine should be his, and he the like to thee; thou calledst him father, being in his land a stranger, and by the same reason so must I do thee."

"But, Princess," he objected, "it is different here. The King would like it not if I allowed it here; he might say it was indeed truth what mine enemies say of me, that I plan to raise myself above them."

"Wert thou afraid to come into my father's country and caused fear in him and all his people but me, and fearest thou here I should call thee father? I tell thee then I will and thou shalt call me child, and so will I be for ever and ever thy countryman."

Smith smiled at her eagerness, yet was deeply touched by it.

"Call me then what thou wilt; I can fear no evil that might come to me from thee."

Pocahontas then spoke a few words to him in the Powhatan tongue, anxious to see if he still remembered it. And he answered her in her language.

She was silent, but Smith could see that something was disturbing her.

"What is it, Matoaka; what words wait to cross the ford of thy lips?" he asked.

"They did tell me always," she replied, "that thou wert dead and I knew no more till I came to Plymouth, yet Powhatan did command Uttamatomakkin to seek thee and know the truth, because thy countrymen will lie much."

"Think of it no more. Little Sister, if thou still let me call thee that. I am not dead yet and I have many journeys to make. I thank fate I had not yet sailed for that coast to the north of Jamestown they call 'New England,' so that I might greet thee once again. When I return we shall have many more talks together."