e to keep them from straying."

"And if she had not left thee free," queried Pocahontas, "what wouldst
thou have done?" Somehow, captivity and the thought of captives had
suddenly become of extreme interest to the girl.

"I know not, Princess," answered the boy after pondering a moment, "yet
had not my father and mother been dead I feel certain I should have
sought to escape to them, even had thy father set all his guards about
the village. But they were no more, and our wigwam afar off was empty;
and so my heart finds rest in a new home and I gladly obey a new
mother."

"Is it then so hard to forget an old lodge and other ways?" pondered the
girl. "It seems to me that each day among strangers would be the
beginning of a new life, that it would be pleasant to know I could not
foresee what would come to pass before nightfall. Why," she queried,
looking eagerly at both the old woman and the boy, "why should this
paleface desire to return to the island where they sicken and starve
while here he hath food in plenty?"

"Wait till thou thyself art among strangers away from thine own people,"
cried Wansutis sternly, and then she turned her back upon the young
people and began to mutter.

"So thou hast no drink of forgetfulness to give me?" asked Pocahontas,
hesitating at the entrance, to which she had retreated; but the old
woman did not answer; and Pocahontas walked off slowly, meditating as
she went, while Claw-of-the-Eagle, bow in hand, gazed after her.

It had grown dark and John Smith, his legs cramped with long sitting,
stretched himself out by the side of the fire in his lodge into which he
had thrown some twigs, so that the embers which had smouldered all day
now blazed up brightly. The cheerful crackling was welcome, it seemed to
him to speak in English words of home and comfort, not the heathenish
jargon he had listened to perforce for several weeks. Not only was it a
companion but a protection. While it blazed he might be seized and put
to death, but at least he should see his enemies. He missed Pocahontas
for her own sake, not only because her staying away argued ill for his
safety. Gratitude was not the only reason for his interest in her: she
seemed to him the freest, brightest creature he had ever come across, as
much a part of the wilderness nature as a squirrel or a bird. Like all
cultured Englishmen of his day, he had read many books and poems about
shepherdesses in Arcadia and princesses of enchanted r