seen."

"The nearest settlements have been warned?"

"Ay. The Governor offered a thousand pounds of tobacco and the perpetual
esteem of the Company to the man or men who would carry the news. Six
volunteered, and went off in boats, three up river, three down. How
many they reached, or if they still have their scalps, we know not. And
awhile ago, just before daybreak, comes with frantic haste Richard
Pace, who had rowed up from Pace's Pains to tell the news which you had
already brought. Chanco the Christian had betrayed the plot to him, and
he managed to give warning at Powel's and one or two other places as he
came up the river."

He broke off, but when I would have spoken interrupted me with: "And so
you were on the Pamunkey all this while! Then the Paspaheghs fooled us
with the simple truth, for they swore so stoutly that their absent chief
men were but gone on a hunt toward the Pamunkey that we had no choice
but to believe them gone in quite another direction. And one and all of
every tribe we questioned swore that Opechancanough was at Orapax. So
Master Rolfe puts off up river to find, if not you, then the Emperor,
and make him give up your murderers; and the Governor sends a party
along the bay, and West another up the Chickahominy. And there you were,
all the time, mewed up in the village above the marshes! And Nantauquas,
after saving our lives like one of us, is turned Indian again! And your
man is killed! Alackaday! there's naught but trouble in the world. 'As
the sparks fly upwards,' you know. But a brave man draws his breath and
sets his teeth."

In his manner, his rapid talk, his uneasy glances toward the door, I
found something forced and strange. "I thought Rolfe was behind me," he
said, "but he must have been delayed. There are meat and drink set out
in the great room, where the Governor and those of the Council who
are safe here with us are advising together. Let's descend; you've not
eaten, and the good sack will give you strength. Wilt come?"

"Ay," I answered, "but tell me the news as we go. I have been gone ten
days,--faith, it seems ten years! There have no ships sailed, Master
Pory? The George is still here?" I looked him full in the eye, for a
sudden guess at a possible reason for his confusion had stabbed me like
a knife.

"Ay," he said, with a readiness that could scarce be feigned. "She was
to have sailed this week, it is true, the Governor fearing to keep
her longer. But the Esperance