ngst them was Chanco the Christian. I called him to me, and we
listened to his report with growing perturbation. "Thirty warriors!"
I said, when he had finished. "And they are painted yellow as well as
black, and have dashed their cheeks with puccoon: it's _l'outrance_,
then! And the war dance is toward! If we are to pacify this hornets'
nest, it's high time we set about it. Gentlemen of the block house, we
are but twelve, and they may beat us back, in which case those that are
left of us will fight it out with you here. Watch for us, therefore, and
have a sally party ready. Forward, men!"

"One moment, Captain Percy," said Rolfe. "Chanco, where's the Emperor?"

"Five suns ago he was with the priests at Uttamussac," answered the
Indian. "Yesterday, at the full sun power, he was in the lodge of
the werowance of the Chickahominies. He feasts there still. The
Chickahominies and the Powhatans have buried the hatchet."

"I regret to hear it," I remarked. "Whilst they took each other's
scalps, mine own felt the safer."

"I advise going direct to Opechancanough," said Rolfe.

"Since he's only a league away, so do I," I answered.

We left the block house and the clearing around it, and plunged into
the depths of the forest. In these virgin woods the trees are set well
apart, though linked one to the other by the omnipresent grape, and
there is little undergrowth, so that we were able to make good speed.
Rolfe and I rode well in front of our men. By now the sun was shining
through the lower branches of the trees, and the mist was fast
vanishing. The forest--around us, above us, and under the hoofs of the
horses where the fallen leaves lay thick--was as yellow as gold and as
red as blood.

"Rolfe," I asked, breaking a long silence, "do you credit what the
Indians say of Opechancanough?"

"That he was brother to Powhatan only by adoption?"

"That, fleeing for his life, he came to Virginia, years and years ago,
from some mysterious land far to the south and west?"

"I do not know," he replied thoughtfully. "He is like, and yet not like,
the people whom he rules. In his eye there is the authority of mind; his
features are of a nobler cast "--

"And his heart is of a darker," I said. "It is a strange and subtle
savage."

"Strange enough and subtle enough, I admit," he answered, "though I
believe not with you that his friendliness toward us is but a mask."

"Believe it or not, it is so," I said. "That dark, cold, still