Though well satisfied with the results of her enterprise and amusement, Pocahontas had no mind to be brought into her home as a captive, even though it be half in jest.  Her father might not consider it so amusing and, moreover, she did not like to be outwitted.  She was so busy thinking that she forgot to continue her game and walked quietly ahead, keeping up with the longer strides of the warriors by occasional little runs forward.  The braves, their own heads full of their first campaign, kept fingering lovingly the scalps at their girdles, and paid little attention to her.

She stooped as if to fasten her moccasin, then, as their impetus carried them a few feet ahead of her before they stopped for her to come up, she darted like a flash to the left and had slid down into a little hollow before they thought of starting after her.

It was now almost dark and her white fur was indistinguishable against the snow below.  Before they had reached the bottom, Pocahontas, who knew every inch of the ground that was less familiar to men from her uncle’s village, had slipped back into the forest which skirted the fields the pursuers were now speeding across, and was lost at once in the darkness.

Opechanchanough knew nothing of this escape.  He meant to explain to his royal brother how much mischief a child might do who was not kept at home performing squaw duties in her wigwam.  And Powhatan’s favorite daughter or not, Pocahontas should be kept waiting outside her father’s lodge until he had related his important business and had recounted all the glorious deeds done by his Pamunkeys.

Now they had come to Werowocomoco itself, and the noise of their shoutings and of their war drums brought the inhabitants running out of their wigwams.  As the Pamunkeys were an allied tribe, their cause against a common enemy was the same, yet the rejoicings at the victory against the Monachans was somewhat less than it would have been had the conquerors been Powhatans themselves.  However, Opechanchanough and his braves could not complain of their reception, and runners sped ahead to advise Powhatan of their coming, while all the population of their village crowded about them, the men questioning, the boys fingering the scalps and each boasting how many he would have at his girdle when he was grown.

The great Werowance was not in his ceremonial lodge but in the one in which he ordinarily slept and ate when at Werowocomoco.  Opechanchanough paused at the opening of the lodge and ordered: 

“When I call out then bring ye in Pocahontas, and we shall see what Powhatan thinks of a squaw child that shoots at warriors.”

The lodge was almost dark when he entered it.  Before the fire in the centre he could see his brother Powhatan seated, and on each side of him one of his wives.  Then he made out the features of his nephew Nautauquas and Pocahontas’ younger sister, Cleopatra (for so it was the English later understood the girl’s strange Indian name).  They had evidently just been eating supper and the dogs behind them were gnawing the wild turkey bones that had been thrown to them.  At Powhatan’s feet crouched a child in a dark robe, with face in the shadow.