“Whither are we bound.  Captain?” asked Andrew Buckler querulously.  “It doth not seem wise to go further off from our boat.  If they mean harm to us we shall have all the longer way to fight through.”

“There will be no fighting to be done,” declared Smith, not deigning even to slacken his gait.

But just then loud shrieks came from the woods, and between the trees dashed out a score or more creatures directly upon them.

[Illustration:  Decorative]

CHAPTER XIII

POWHATAN’S CORONATION

The trees grew so close together that it was difficult for the Englishmen to distinguish in the shadows they cast the figures whirling between the trunks.  Half naked they were:  here a mass of something painted red; there flashed a white arm, of a whiteness such as nature never dyed, and there issued shoulders of a brilliant blue, as they advanced dancing and shrieking.

“All their war paint on!” ejaculated Captain Waldo.

And in that moment John Smith lost his faith in the friendship Powhatan had sworn to him, and he drew his sword, ready to pierce the first oncomer.

Then he looked again ... and hastily thrust his sword back into its scabbard, shouting to his comrades who had also drawn their blades, “Hold!”

For there before him, the first of the dancers who had run out of the forest, advanced Pocahontas!  On her head she wore branching antlers, an otter skin at her waist and one across her arm, a quiver at her back, and she carried a bow and arrow in her hand.  In a flash she realized what the Englishmen were thinking—­that they were caught in an ambush.

“My Brother!” she cried out in a tone that rang with disappointment, “didst thou too doubt me?  Tell them, thy companions, that I lay my life in their hands if any harm was intended.”

Seldom in his life had John Smith felt so at a loss as to what he should reply.  He hurriedly explained to the others that Pocahontas was evidently intending to do them special honour in welcoming them with some kind of sylvan masque.  Then facing her, he cried: 

“Forgive us, Matoaka, and be not angry that we mistook thy kindness.  See, we seat ourselves here upon the ground and we beseech thee that thou and thy maidens will continue thy songs and thy dancing, which will greatly divert us.”

Pocahontas’s disappointment vanished at once and she sped back with her comrades to the woods, where they repeated their masque, this time to the amusement of the Englishmen, who were somewhat ashamed to think that they had been so frightened by a troop of girls.  All of the dancers were horned like their leader and the upper parts of their bodies and their arms were painted red, white or blue.  There was a fire blazing in the centre of the field and around this they formed a ring, dancing and singing a song which, while unlike anything Smith’s companions had ever heard, affected their pulses like drumbeats.  Some of the words they sang Smith was able to catch words of welcome, songs of young maidens in which they told of the joys of childhood and of the days when sweet-hearts would seek them and when they would follow some brave to his wigwam.