ee
also?"

"Nay, in truth, she was all kindness to me," replied Smith, his eye
kindling at the remembrance of the Turkish lady who had aided him. "She
was very beautiful, with lovely garments and rich jewels," he added,
thinking to interest the girl with descriptions of her finery, "and I
owe her many thanks."

"Was she more beautiful than I?" asked Pocahontas, her brows knitting
angrily.

"She was very different," the amused Englishman answered. It was
scarcely possible for him to consider these savages as being real human
creatures, to be compared even with the Turks; yet he did not wish to
hurt the feelings of one who had done so much for him. "She was a grown
woman," he added, "and therefore it boots not to compare her with the
child thou art."

"I am no child. I am a woman!" cried Pocahontas, springing up in a fury
and rushed off like a whirlwind towards the forest.

John Smith looked after her in dismay. If he had turned his only friend
against him then was he indeed in a sad plight!

[Illustration: Decorative]

CHAPTER X

THE LODGE IN THE WOODS

Neither the rest of that day nor the next had Smith any speech with
Pocahontas. True it was that she came accompanied by squaws and
children, all eager to serve as cupbearers in order to observe the
paleface closely. But she put down the food beside him and did not
linger.

By the middle of the second day Smith found himself less an object of
interest. Everyone in Werowocomoco had been to gaze at him and the older
chiefs had sat and talked with him; but the Englishman could not
discover what their opinion in regard to his coming or his future might
be. Now there seemed to be something afoot which was engaging the
attention of the braves who congregated together before the long lodge.
Had it anything to do with his own fate, the captive wondered. The
children, too, had found other things to interest them. He saw them,
their little red bodies glistening in the sun, playing with the dogs or
pretending they were a war party creeping through a hostile country.
Smith missed them peering about the opening of his lodge, half amused,
half frightened, when he attempted to make friends.

He leaned idly against the side of the wigwam, watching two squaws not
far away who were tanning a deerskin and cutting it in strips for
thread. Would the time ever come again, he wondered, when he would
behold a white woman sewing or spinning?

He saw Pocahontas leave