night.

The darkness had come quickly and the woods that stretched between the
lodge and the centre of Werowocomoco were thick and sombre. Through them
Pocahontas sped more swiftly than she had ever run a race with her
brothers. She did not trip over the roots slippery with frost nor,
though she had not taken time to put a mantle over her bare shoulders,
did she feel the cold. For she knew now that the war dance had been
danced against the English.

She was all but breathless when she reached the lodge near the river's
edge, but rushing inside, she seized a musket from the pile on the
ground, to the astonishment of the guard, who recognized her in time not
to hurt her, and thrust it into Smith's hands, crying:

"Arm yourselves, my friends. Make ready quickly," and as Smith would
have questioned, she panted: "When your weapons are in readiness then
will I speak."

Smith gave hurried orders, reproaching himself for his false confidence.
The men sprang up from the fire, seized their long-barrelled muskets and
their halberts; and a few who had laid aside their steel corselets
hastily fastened them on again, and threw their bandoliers, filled with
charges, over their shoulders. The merry, careless party was now quickly
converted into a troop of cautious soldiers. Then Smith turned to
Pocahontas, whose breath was coming more quietly as she beheld the
precautions taken for defence. She answered his unspoken query:

"I overheard the words of the treacherous Dutchmen to my father even
now. I feared when I heard the war song and saw them dancing the war
dance. Woe is me! my Brother, that I should speak against my own father,
but I listened to the plans he hath made to take you here unawares, your
weapons out of your hands. For this moment he hath waited all day and he
hath sought to deceive you with fair words. They are now on their way
with the supper he promised thee; then when you are all eating he hath
given orders to his men that they fall upon you and slay all, that none
may escape. And so as soon as I learned this, that thou to whom he had
sworn friendship and thine were in dire peril, I hastened through the
dark forest to warn thee."

Smith was deeply touched by this manifestation of her loyalty. He knew
the danger she ran if Powhatan should learn of what she had done.

"Matoaka," he cried, clasping her hand, "thou hast this night put all
England in thy debt. As long as this Virginia is a name men remember, so
lon