They taught her to say after them a few words such as “Good-day,” “food,” and “the Captain,” meaning Smith; and the possession of this new and strange accomplishment was almost as dear to her as beads or bracelet.  The island for her was a place of enchantment.  The sunset gun from the fort awoke more thrills of marvel in her than the rages of a thunderstorm; and the strangest medicine of all was the power the white men had of communicating their wishes to others at a distance by means of little marks upon scraps of paper.

One afternoon when she had come, accompanied by Cleopatra, she found the streets and houses of Jamestown deserted.  As they wandered about, wondering what had happened to the palefaces, they heard the sound of voices issuing from a rough shed beyond.  They seemed neither to be talking nor shrieking but chanting in a kind of rhythm such as she had never heard.  Quietly the two maidens followed the sound to the shed.  It was made of wood, open at the sides and roofed over with a piece of sail-cloth.  Crouched behind some sumac bushes still bearing aloft their crimson torches, the girls looked on in wonderment, themselves unseen.  The sun was sinking behind them, behind the backs too of the colonists who all faced the east.  Then Pocahontas whispered to her sister: 

“See, Cleopatra, they must be worshiping their Okee.  Yon man all in white before them must be a shaman.”

A keen curiosity kept her there, though Cleopatra pulled in fright at her skirt, whispering entreaties to be gone before some dire medicine should fall upon them.  She saw them all, when the chanting had ceased, kneel down on the bare ground and heard them repeat some incantation which she felt sure must be of great strength, to judge by the firmness of the tone in which they all recited it.  Their Okee, she thought, must be a very powerful one; and there came to her as she crouched there, the hidden witness of this evening service, the conviction that her father, if he would, and even with all his tribes, could never conquer this handful of determined men.

She was afraid that “her brother” might be angry with her for having looked on at ceremonies that were perhaps forbidden to women or members of other tribes; so, greatly to Cleopatra’s relief, they slipped away, leaving at the fort the provisions they had borne on their strong young backs.

A few days later news came from Opechanchanough that the big canoe, so eagerly expected by the strangers, had been seen at Kecoughtan and was now on its way up the river.  Powhatan was astounded, for it was the very day the white captain had foretold its arrival.  Truly a man who could see so far across the waves of the big water was one to be feared.  And from that day the werowance had deep respect for John Smith and his powers.

Now that the ship had brought provisions there was for a time no need of aid from Werowocomoco.  But only for a time.  One day when Smith had conducted Pocahontas over the ship to show her the wonders of this monster canoe, he asked her to have her people bring food once more to Jamestown.