The Princess Pocahontas Part 11

Suppose then--the thought flashed through his brain--that he, Claw-of-the-Eagle, should make this wish a fact! Powhatan would never punish the doer of the deed.

He crept nearer still to the sleeping man, loosening the knife in his girdle. There was no sound within the lodge, only the faint crooning of Pocahontas without; yet something, some feeling of danger, aroused the Englishman. Through his half-closed lids he scarce distinguished the slowly advancing red body from the red earth over which it was moving.

But when the boy was close enough to touch him with the outstretched hand. Smith opened his eyes wide. He did not move, did not cry out, though he saw the knife in the long thin fingers; all he did was to fix his gaze sternly upon the boy's face. Claw-of-the-Eagle tried to strike, but with those fearless eyes upon him he could not move his arm.

Slowly, as he had come, he crawled back to the entrance, unable to turn his head from the man who watched him. It was only when he was out in the air again that he felt he could take a long breath.

"He is a good sleeper," was all he remarked.

"And doubtless he is as good an eater and will be hungry when he wakes.

Wilt thou not stop at our lodge, Claw-of-the-Eagle, and bid them bring me food for him?"

He did as she asked, and shortly after the squaws arrived with earthen dishes filled with bread and meat. They peered eagerly through the crevices till Pocahontas commanded them to be off. Hearing a noise within the lodge, she was about to bear the food inside when Smith stepped to the entrance.

He was astonished to see the kind of sentinel they had set to guard him.

He had expected to find that his unexpected guest would be waiting outside for another chance at his life, and he preferred to hasten the moment. He realized that this maiden, however, would be as efficient a gaoler as a score of braves. Should he dream of escaping, of finding his way without guides or even his compa.s.s, back to Jamestown, her outcry would bring the entire village to her aid. He recognized his saviour of the day before and bowed low, a bow meant for the princess and for his protector. Pocahontas, though a European salutation was as strange to her as Indian ways were to him, felt sure his ceremonious manner was intended to do her honor, and received it gravely and graciously.

"Here is food for thee, White Chief," she said, placing it on a mat she had spread on the ground; "sit and eat."

"It is welcome," he answered, "yet first harken to me. I have not words of thy tongue, little Princess, to pay thee for thy great gift, and though my words were as plentiful as the grains of sand by the waters, they were still too few to offer thee."

"Gifts made to chiefs," she answered with a dignity copied from her father's, "can never pay for princely benefits."

Smith could not help smiling at the grandiloquence of the child's language, for in spite of her height, he realized that her years were but few.

"Yet," she continued, seating herself, "it pleaseth me to receive thy thanks."

Now she put aside her grown-up air and her curious glances were those of the child she was. She fingered gently the sleeve of his doublet stained by the mora.s.s in which he had been captured and torn by the briars of the forests through which he had been led.

"'Tis good English cloth," he remarked, "to have withstood such storm, and I bless the sheep on whose backs it grew."

"What beasts are those?" she queried, and Smith endeavored to explain the various uses and the looks of Southdown flocks.

"Did thy squaws make thy coat for thee when thou hadst slain that--that new beast?"

"I have no squaw, little Princess."

"I am glad," she sighed.

"And why?"

"I do not know", her brow wrinkling as she tried to fathom her own feelings. "Perhaps it is because now thou wilt not pine for her and to be gone from amongst us."

"But I must leave here soon, little maid; my people at Jamestown are waiting for me."

He said this in order to try and discern what was the intention of Powhatan towards him. Now that his life was saved, his thought was for his liberty.

"Thou shalt not go," she cried, springing up. "Thou belongest to me and it is my will to keep thee that thou mayst tell me tales of the world beyond the sunrise and make new medicine for us. Thou shalt not go."

"So be it," said Smith in a tone he tried to render as unemotional as possible. He sighed inwardly as he thought of his fellows at Jamestown, ill, starving, and now doubtless believing him dead. Perhaps if he bided his time he would find some way of communicating with them. In the meantime, policy, as well as inclination, urged his making friends with this eager little savage maiden.

Now that he did not attempt to oppose her, Pocahontas sank down again beside him. Already there was an audience: braves, squaws and children were crowding about, watching the paleface eat. Smith had learned since his captivity the value the Indians set upon an impa.s.sive manner, so he continued cutting off bits of venison and chewing them with as little attention to those about him as King James himself might show when he dined in state alone at Guildhall. But for Pocahontas's presence, whose claim to the captive every one respected, they would have come even nearer. As it was, one boy slipped behind her and jerked at Smith's beard. Pocahontas ordered him away and said in excuse:

"Do not be angry, he wanted only to find out if it were fast."

She shared the child's curiosity in regard to the beard. Might it not be, she wondered, some kind of adornment put on when he set out on the warpath, as her people decked themselves on special occasions with painted masks?

Smith tugged at his beard with both hands, smiling, and his audience burst out laughing. They could appreciate a joke, it seemed, and he was glad to see that their temper to him was friendly, for the moment at least. One of the older men pointed to the pocket in his jerkin and asked what he had in it. Compa.s.s and watch were gone, but Smith delved into its depths in hopes of finding something he had forgotten which might interest them. He brought out a pencil and a small note-book. He wrote a few words and handed them to Pocahontas, saying:

"These are medicine marks. If one should carry them to Jamestown they would speak to my people there and they would hear what I say at Werowocomoco."

Pocahontas shook her head as did those to whom she pa.s.sed the leaf. The stranger might do many wonderful things, but this claim pa.s.sed the bounds of even the greatest shaman's power.

Smith, however, determined to keep her thinking of the possibility of his return to Jamestown, continued:

"It is possible for me, in truth. Princess, and if thou would'st accompany me thither I could show thee stranger marvels still."

"Nay," she cried angrily, "thou shalt never go there. Thou art mine to do as I will. Is it not so?" she appealed to those about her.

They all shouted affirmation, confirming Smith's belief that his fate had been placed in a girl's hands. It was not the first time such a thing had happened to him; once before in his life a woman had been his gaoler, and he again made up his mind to bide his time. He answered the numerous questions put to him as best he could, about the number of days he had been with the Pamunkeys, his capture, and why he had separated from his fellows. In turn he questioned them about their harvests, the time and method of planting and the moon of the ripening of the maize; but the Indians showed plainly that they liked better to ask than to answer.

As the day advanced the crowd began to dwindle. The captive would not fail to be there whenever they desired to observe him and there was hunting to be done and cooking, and already some of the boys had strolled off to play their ever-fascinating game of tossing plumstones into the air. At last only Pocahontas was left with the prisoner.

Smith glanced about to see what the chances of escape might be should he make a sudden dash, but the sight of some braves at a lodge not more than a hundred feet away busied in sharpening arrowheads made him settle down again.

"Tell me, White Chief," said Pocahontas as she lighted a pipe she had filled with tobacco and gave it now to Smith, "tell me about thyself and thy people. Are ye in truth like unto us; do ye die as we do or can your medicine preserve you forever like Okee? Canst thou change thyself into an animal at will? If so, I fain would know how to do it, too."

Smith looked critically at the girl who sat on a mat beside him. He had never seen a maiden whose spirit was more eager for life. In her avidity for the miraculous he recognized something akin to his own love of adventure and desire to explore new lands and to sample new ways. She could not sail across the ocean in search of them as he had done--_he_ was her great adventure, he realized, a personified book of strange tales to fire her imagination, as his had been stirred as a boy by stories of the kingdom of Prester John, of the El Dorado, of the Spanish Main and of the lost Raleigh Colony. The tobacco, which he had learned to smoke while with the Pamunkeys, soothed him; he was in no immediate danger; the warm sun was pleasant and the bright-eyed girl beside him was a sympathetic audience. He was always fond of talking, of living over the picturesque happenings that had crowded his twenty-eight years, and now he let himself run on, seeing again in his mind's eye the faces and the scenes of many lands, none of them, however, more strange than his present surroundings. The only difficulty was his insufficient vocabulary; but his mind was a quick and retentive one and each new word, once captured, came at his bidding. Also, Pocahontas was a bright listener; she guessed at much he could not express and helped him with gesture and phrase.

"Princess," he began, when she interrupted:

"Call me Pocahontas as do my people. Perchance some day I'll tell thee my other name."

"Pocahontas, then," he repeated slowly, impressing the name on his memory, "I will obey thee. We are but men, as are thy kinsfolk, subject to cold and hunger, ills and death. Yet, as G.o.d, our Okee, is greater than your Okee, so our power and our medicine excel those of the mighty Powhatan and of his shamans. Thou asketh for tales of the land whence I come. They are so many that like the leaves of the forest I cannot count them. If we sat here until thou wert a wrinkled old crone like her yonder," and he pointed to old Wansutis who was hobbling by, "I could not relate half of them. Therefore, if it pleaseth thee, I will tell thee of some matters that have affected thy captive."

Pocahontas nodded her approbation.

"Our land, fair England, set in a stormy sea, is a mighty kingdom many, many days' journey over the waters. There all men and women are as white or whiter than I, now so weatherworn, as indeed are those of many other kingdoms further towards the sunrise. Our land, now ruled by a king who wields dominion over hundreds of tribes, was a few years ago under the sway of a mighty princess."

"Was she fair?" asked Pocahontas.

Smith hesitated. The glamour which had once hovered about "Good Queen Bess," obscuring the eyes of her loyal subjects, had since her death been somewhat dispelled. He thought of the pinched face, the sandy hair, the long nose, the small eyes--but then he had a vision of her as his boyish eyes had first beheld her, the sovereign riding her white steed before the host a.s.sembled to encounter the forces of the Armada Spain was sending to crush her realm.

"Not beautiful was she," he replied, "but a very king of men!"

He puffed a moment reminiscently, then continued:

"I was born some years ago in a part of our island called Lincolns.h.i.+re, where it is low and marshy in places like unto the mora.s.s where thine uncle took me prisoner. Yet it is a land I love, though it grew too small for me, and when I was old enough to be a brave my hands itched to be fighting our enemies. So I went forth on the warpath against our foes in France and in the Netherlands. Then when I had fought for many moons and had gained fame as a warrior I felt a longing to return to mine own home. I abode there for a time, then I set forth once more and travelled long in a land called Italy and entered later the service of a great werowance, the Emperor Rudolph, to fight for him against the tribes of his foes, the Turks. I cannot explain to thee, Princess, how different are their ways from our ways; perchance theirs were nearer to thine understanding since they are not given to mercy and take to themselves many squaws; but let that rest. I fought them hard and often, and one day before the two armies, that ceased their combat to witness, I slew three of their great fighters, for which the Emperor did allow me to bear arms containing Three Turks' Heads--that is, as if one of thy kinsmen should sew upon his robe three scalps of enemies he had killed.

But soon after that was I taken prisoner by these Turks and sold into captivity as a slave."