POWHATAN’S AMBASSADOR

Pocahontas was as good as her word.  That same evening as soon as she had exhibited her treasures to Powhatan and to his envious squaws and had related her impressions of the town and wigwams of the palefaces, she busied herself in getting together baskets of corn, haunches of dried venison and bear-meat and sent them by swift runners to “her brother” at Jamestown.

In the days following, though she played with her sisters, though she hunted with Nautauquas in the forest, though she listened at night, crouched against her father’s knees before the fire to tales of achievements of her tribe in war, or to strange transformation of braves into beasts and spirits, her thoughts would wander off to the white man’s island, to the many wonders it held which she had scarcely sampled.  The pressure of her bracelet on her arm would recall its giver, and she saw again in her mind his eyes, so kind when they smiled on her, so stern at other times.

She thought too of the man she had seen rolled over by the barrel—­of how slowly he had risen.  She knew that there was such a thing as starvation, because sometimes allied tribes of the Powhatans, whose harvests had not been successful or whose braves had been lazy hunters, had come to beseech food from the great storehouse at Powhata.  But she herself had never before seen any one faint for food, and it hurt her when she thought of the abundance at Werowocomoco, where not even the dogs went hungry, to know that there were men not far away who must go without.  Her father made no objection when a day or two later she told him that she wished to take another supply of provisions to the white men.

“So be it,” nodded Powhatan.  “Thy captive shall be fed until the big canoe he said was on its way shall arrive.  He saith—­though this be great foolishness, since he cannot see so far—­that at the end of this moon it will come safe over the waters.  But until the day of its arrival, whenever that may be, thou canst send or carry of our surplus to them.  And hearken, Matoaka,” he whispered that the squaws might not hear, “thou hast wits beyond thy years, therefore do thou seek to learn some of the white man’s magic.  There be times when the cunning of the fox is worth more than the claws of the bear.”

So every three or four days Pocahontas brought food to Smith, for his own need and for that of his fellows.  Sometimes, accompanied by her sister or her maidens, she would go by night to Jamestown, and half laughing, half frightened, they would set down the baskets before the fort and run like timorous deer back to the forest before the sentinel had opened the gate in the palisade in answer to their call.  Sometimes, with Claw-of-the-Eagle as her companion, she would walk through the street of Jamestown, greeting, now with girlish dignity, now with smiles, its inhabitants whose thin faces lighted up at sight of her.  She came to symbolize to them the hope in the new world they had all but lost; they rejoiced to see her, not only for her gifts, but for herself.