venture 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 God, 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 whi