“Did the bear, thy bedfellow, scratch thee?” asked one, “and didst thou outdo him, for this morning he was not to be found near the lodge.”

“Perhaps,” suggested another, “it was not a real bear cub but some evil manitou.”

The maidens shuddered deliciously at this possibility.

“Nonsense,” called back Pocahontas, “he was real enough; here is the mark of one claw on my foot.  Besides, I do not believe the evil manitou can have such power on such a beautiful day as this.  Okee must have bid them fly away.”

Now suddenly the path turned and before them shone the silver mirror of the sea.

“Behold!” cried Pocahontas, and then Red Wing, her nearest companion, fell flat upon the ground, burying her face in the sand.  The others stood and stared at the new watery world in front of them, hushed in an awed silence.  Gradually their curiosity got the better of their fear and they began to question: 

“How many leagues does it stretch, Pocahontas?”—­“Can war canoes find their way on it?”—­“Come the good oysters from its depths?” asked Deer-Eye, whose appetite was always made fun of.

Pocahontas answered as well as she was able, but to her who had seen several times before the great water, it was almost as much of a mystery as to her comrades.  But to-day she greeted it as an old friend.  She could scarcely wait to throw herself into the little rippling waves at her feet.

“Come on,” she cried, “let us hasten.  How wonderful to our heated bodies will its freshness be.”  And as she ran towards it she threw off her skirt, her moccasins and her necklace and dashed into the sea.

Though her companions were used to swimming from the day their mothers had thrown them as babies into the river to harden them, they had never been where there were not protecting banks on each side of them, and they were afraid to follow Pocahontas into this unknown.  But gradually her evident safety and delight were too much for their caution, and they were soon at home in the gentle waves.

For nearly an hour they played their water games, chasing and ducking each other, racing and swimming underneath the surface.  Then they grew hungry and bethought themselves of their food waiting to be cooked.  But when they were on the shore again and about to start a fire to heat their meat, Pocahontas bade them wait.

“Here,” she said, “is fresher food.  See what the tide has left for us.”

To their great astonishment the maidens, who did not know the sea retreated, saw how while they were bathing the water had bared the sand, leaving it full of little pools.  Standing in one of them, Pocahontas stooped down and ran her hand through the mud, bringing up a soft-shelled crab.

“See,” she cried, “there are hundreds of them for our dinner, but be careful to hold them just so, that they may not nip you.”

And her maidens, laughing and shrieking, soon had a larger supply of crabs than they could eat.  They found bits of wood on the beach and dried sea weed which they set on fire by twirling a pointed stick in a wooden groove they had brought along with their food.  After they had eaten, they stretched out lazily on the sand and talked until they began to doze off, one by one.