Every one began to talk at once:  “She desires a vain thing!”—­“She hath the right.”—­“If he live how shall we be safe?”—­“Since first our forefathers dwelt in this land hath this been permitted to our women!”

Powhatan spoke sternly: 

“Dost thou claim him in earnestness, Matoaka?”

“Aye, my father.  I claim him.  Slay him not.  Let him live amongst us and he shall make thee hatchets, and bells and beads and copper things shall he fashion for me.  See, by this robe I wrought to remind thee of thy love for me, I ask this of thee.”

“So be it,” answered The Powhatan.

Pocahontas rose to her feet and, taking Smith by the hand, raised him up, dazed at his sudden deliverance and not understanding how it had come about.

[Illustration:  Decorative]

CHAPTER IX

SMITH’S GAOLER

The following morning Claw-of-the-Eagle, passing before the lodge assigned to the prisoner, beheld Pocahontas seated on the ground in front of it.

“What dost thou here?” he asked, “and where be the guards?”

“I sent them off to sleep as soon as the Sun came back to us,” she answered, looking up at the tall youth beside her.  “I can take care of him myself during the day.”

“Hast thou seen him yet?  Tell me what is he like.  I saw him but for the minute yesterday.”

“He sleeps still.  I peeped between the openings of the bark covering here and beheld him lying there with all those queer garments.  I am eager for his awakening; there are so many questions I would ask him.”

“Let me have a look, too,” pleaded the boy.

Pocahontas nodded and motioned graciously to the opening of the lodge.  It pleased her to grant favors, and Powhatan sometimes smiled when he marked how like his own manner of bestowing them was that of his daughter.

With the same caution with which he crept after a deer in a thicket, Claw-of-the-Eagle moved on hands and knees along the ground within the lodge.  Lying flat on his stomach, he gazed at the Englishman.  He had heard repeated about the village the night before the details of his rescue as they had taken place within the ceremonial wigwam.  Those who told him were divided in their opinions; some looked upon Powhatan’s decision as a danger to them all, and others scouted the idea that those palefaces were to be feared by warriors such as the Powhatans.  Claw-of-the-Eagle, however, did not waver in his belief:  each of the white strangers should be killed off as quickly as might be.  His loyalty to his adopted tribe was as great as if his forefathers had sat about its council fires always.  He was sorry that Pocahontas, much as she pleased him, had persuaded her father to save the life of the first of the palefaces that had fallen into his power.  He believed The Powhatan himself now regretted that he had yielded to affection and to an ancient custom, and that he would gladly see his enemy dead, in order that the news carried to his interloping countrymen might serve as a warning of the fate that awaited them all.