“Poor beast!” exclaimed Nautauquas compassionately.  “I would free him if he would let me touch him.  As it is he will have to starve to death unless his enemy comes back to finish him.”

“No,” said Pocahontas, “that need not be.  I will loose him and bind up his wound if thou wilt cut a strip off thy leggings.”

“Silly child,” he laughed.  “A wild beast needs no balsam nor cloths for his wounds.  If he were free to drag himself to safety he would lick his hurt till it healed.  But he would bite thy hand off shouldst thou attempt to touch him.”

“Nay, Nautauquas, he would not harm me.  See how quiet he will grow.”

She knelt down just beyond the reach of the wildcat and began to whisper to it.  Nautauquas could not make out what she said, but to his amazement he beheld how the beast ceased to lash its tail and how its muscles seemed to relax.  Nevertheless the young brave caught Pocahontas by the arm and tried to pull her away.

“There is no danger, my brother,” she remonstrated.  “Fear not.  Hast thou not seen old Father Noughmass when the bees swarm over his neck and hands?  They never sting him.  He cannot tell thee why, nor do I know why wild beasts will not harm me.”

So Nautauquas, knife in hand and breathing deeply, looked on while Pocahontas, speaking words in a low voice, moved nearer and nearer the wildcat.  Taking her knife from her girdle, she began to cut through the thongs that held him.  One paw was now loose and yet the beast did not move to touch his rescuer.  Then when the other thongs were loose and it was free, it moved off slowly and painfully into the woods as if no human beings were there.

Nautauquas breathed a sigh of relief.

“It is wonderful, Matoaka, yet I pray thee test thy strange power not too far.  I am glad though the poor beast got away.  I like not to see them suffer.  I shoot and kill for food and for skins, but I kill at once.”

They now climbed up the ravine again and started off in the direction of Werowocomoco.

The night was already far advanced and Pocahontas was growing drowsier and drowsier.  Nautauquas, seeing that she was almost asleep, took hold of her arm and made her lean on him.  As they approached the spot where he had first come across her dancing, they noticed a human figure crouched on the ground.  Even in the moonlight, grown dimmer as dawn approached, he could see that it was an old squaw.  Pocahontas recognized old Wansutis, a gatherer of herbs and roots.

“What dost thou here, Wansutis?” she questioned.

“He! the little princess,” cried the old woman, scowling up at them, “and the young brave Nautauquas.  I seek roots and leaves by the light of the Sun’s squaw.  So is it meet for me and so will the drinks be stronger when brewed by old Wansutis.  I have found many rare plants this night; it hath been a lucky one, perchance because the young princess was also abroad in the forest.”