anged into one of real earnestness--"I who sit close
to Powhatan's heart shall whisper every day in his ear: 'Harm not
Jamestown, if thou lovest Matoaka.'"

A look of great relief passed over the wounded man's face. Truly it was
a wondrous thing that the expression of a girl's friendship was able to
soothe thus his anxieties.

"I thank thee again, little Sister," he said. "And now bid me farewell,
for yon come the sailors to bear me to the ship."

Pocahontas sprang up and bending over him, poured forth words of tender
Indian farewells. Then, as the bearers approached, she fled towards the
gates and into the forest.

John Smith, lying at the prow of the ship, placed there to be nearer the
sea as he desired, thought as the ship sailed slowly past the next bend
in the river, that he caught sight of a white buckskin skirt between the
trees.

[Illustration: Decorative]

CHAPTER XVI

CAPTAIN ARGALL TAKES A PRISONER

And in the three years that had passed since Smith's return to England
Pocahontas did not forget the trust he had given her. Many a time had
she sent or brought aid to the colonists during the terrible "starving
time," and warded off evil from them. When she was powerless to prevent
the massacre by Powhatan of Ratcliffe and thirty of his men, she
succeeded at least in saving the life of one of his men, a young boy.
Henry Spilman, whom she sent to her kindred tribe, the Patowomekes. With
them he lived for many years.

But her relations with Jamestown and its people, though most friendly,
were no longer as intimate as they had been when Smith was President,
and she went there less and less.

One who rejoiced at her home-keeping was Claw-of-the-Eagle. He had hated
the white men from the beginning and had done his share to destroy them
in the Ratcliffe massacre, though he had never told Pocahontas that he
had taken part in it. He was now a brave, tested in courage and
endurance in numerous war parties against enemies of his adopted tribe
whose honor and advancement he had made his own. The Powhatan himself
had praised his deeds in council.

One day Wansutis said to him:

"Son, it is time now that thou shouldst take a squaw into thy wigwam. My
hands grow weak and a young squaw will serve thee more swiftly than I.
Look about thee, my son, and choose."

Claw-of-the-Eagle had been thinking many moons that the time _had_ come
to bring home a squaw, but he had no need to look about and choose. He