pleaded fatigue as the reason for looking so pale: I did not dare to
convey to her this dreadful news.

CHAPTER LXXX. Pocahontas

The English public not being so well acquainted with the history of
Pocahontas as we of Virginia, who still love the memory of that simple
and kindly creature, Mr. Warrington, at the suggestion of his friends,
made a little ballad about this Indian princess, which was printed in
the magazines a few days before the appearance of the tragedy. This
proceeding Sampson and I considered to be very artful and ingenious. "It
is like ground-bait, sir," says the enthusiastic parson, "and you will
see the fish rise in multitudes, on the great day!" He and Spencer
declared that the poem was discussed and admired at several
coffee-houses in their hearing, and that it had been attributed to Mr.
Mason, Mr. Cowper of the Temple, and even to the famous Mr. Gray.
I believe poor Sam had himself set abroad these reports; and, if
Shakspeare had been named as the author of the tragedy, would have
declared Pocahontas to be one of the poet's best performances. I made
acquaintance with brave Captain Smith, as a boy in my grandfather's
library at home, where I remember how I would sit at the good old man's
knees, with my favourite volume on my own, spelling out the exploits
of our Virginian hero. I loved to read of Smith's travels, sufferings,
captivities, escapes, not only in America but Europe. I become a child
again almost as I take from the shelf before me in England the familiar
volume, and all sorts of recollections of my early home come crowding
over my mind. The old grandfather would make pictures for me of Smith
doing battle with the Turks on the Danube, or led out by our Indian
savages to death. Ah, what a terrific fight was that in which he was
engaged with the three Turkish champions, and how I used to delight over
the story of his combat with Bonny Molgro, the last and most dreadful
of the three! What a name Bonny Molgro was, and with what a prodigious
turban, scimitar, and whiskers we represented him! Having slain and
taken off the heads of his first two enemies, Smith and Bonny Molgro
met, falling to (says my favourite old book) "with their battle-axes,
whose piercing bills made sometimes the one, sometimes the other,
to have scarce sense to keep their saddles: especially the Christian
received such a wound that he lost his battle-axe, whereat the supposed
conquering Turke had a great shout fro