where he had meant to kill the white man. It
was only Smith himself who awed him so; but he dreamed that some day he
might be able to deal a blow in the dark when those terrible eyes could
not stop him. In the meantime he felt equal to meeting the other
palefaces day or night.

"But," asked Nautauquas slowly and gravely, as if weighing the matter,
"why should we wish to destroy these white men? I once had different
thoughts, and I have gone alone into the forest and fasted and prayed to
Okee that I might know whether to greet them as foe or friend. In some
way the white tribes that live across the great waters have found their
way westward. Many have come, the rumor is, to the south of us, men of
different race and different tongue from these on the island. These
others are cruel to the Indians among whom they have settled and have
destroyed many villages and made captive their braves and squaws. Now I
have talked with our father, Wahunsunakuk, of what I now speak, since we
can no longer hope to hide our trail again to these wanderers from the
rising sun, that it is better to make friends of these who have come and
who seem well-disposed towards us, and to have them for allies rather
than enemies."

In spite of himself, Claw-of-the-Eagle was impressed with this
reasoning.

"Dost thou then like these paleface strangers and their ways?" he asked.

"There is much about them I do not understand," replied Nautauquas; "how
they can wear so many garments; why they build them houses that let in
no air; why they come here when they have villages beyond the seas; yet
I know that they are brave and that their medicine is mighty."

Pocahontas spoke little. She had never told anyone how much interest she
found in all that concerned the white men and their ways.

It was some days later that Smith, Captain Newport and fifty men started
to march to Werowocomoco for the coronation of Powhatan. The presents
which the King and the governors of the Colony in London had chosen for
him were sent by boat up the river. When the company of Englishmen in
their farthingale-breeches, slashed sleeves and white ruffs, their
swords and buckles glistening, accompanied by a few soldiers bearing
halberds and long muskets, arrived, the entire population of the village
and those of other villages for leagues about were awaiting them. Braves
and squaws had decked themselves out also in their choicest
finery--necklaces and beads and embroidered robes