Then on the seventh of June they stood on the river bank, looking gravely, with many doubts and fears in their hearts, at the Discovery as she sailed for England, bearing Captain Newport away, and leaving them alone in Virginia.

[Illustration:  Decorative]

CHAPTER VII

A FIGHT IN THE SWAMP

Not a day passed without new rumors at Werowocomoco of the white strangers and their curious habits.

Pamunkeys from the tops of swaying trees on either bank watched eagerly the doings of the colonists, and runners bore the word of every movement to both Opechanchanough at Kecoughtan and to The Powhatan at his village.  Curiosity and consternation were equally balanced in the minds of the red men.  What meant this coming from the rising sun of beings whose ways no man could fathom?  Were they gods enjoying a charmed life, against whom neither bow nor shaman’s medicine might avail?  About the council fires in every village this was debated.  The old chiefs, wise in the traditions of their people, spake of prophecies which foretold the coming of heroes with faces pale as water at dawn who should teach to the tribes good medicine and bring plentiful harvests and rich hunting.  Others recalled the vague rumors which had come from far, far away in the Southland, from tribes whose very names were unknown, of other palefaces (the Spanish colonists in the West Indies), who had brought fire and fighting into peaceful, happy islands of the summer seas, who like terrible, powerful demons, spread about them death and strange diseases.

Then came to the councils the comforting word of the death of a white boy slain by a Pamunkey arrow.  So they were mortal after all, said the chiefs, and they smoked their pipes more placidly as they sat around the fire.  Against gods man could not know what action was right; but since these were but men who could hunger and thirst and be wounded, it behooved them to plan what measures should be adopted against them.

Many of the chiefs urged immediate steps.

“It is easy,” said one, “to pull up a young oak sapling, whereas who may uproot a full-grown tree?”

Nautauquas, son of Powhatan, was among the most eager for action.  He had won for himself the name of a great brave and a mighty hunter though still so young.  Many a scalp hung to the ridgepole of his lodge and many a bear and wildcat had he slain at great risk to his life.  Now here was a new way to distinguish himself—­to go forth against dangers he could not even foresee.  What magic these pale-faced strangers used to protect themselves was unknown; therefore if he and his band should overcome them and wipe away all traces of their short stay, it would be a tale for winter firesides and a song for singers of brave deeds as long as his nation endured.

“Let me go, my father,” he pleaded.  “Thou, who thyself hast conquered thirty tribes, grudge not this fame to thy son.”