Off in the woods, near a hollow in a little stream where the trout and crawfish disported themselves over a bright sandy bottom, Pocahontas lay at full length, her brown arms stretched out, the color of the pine needles beneath them.  The leafage of a gigantic red oak shaded her; through its greenery she could see the heavy white clouds, and once an eagle flying as it seemed straight up into the sun.  Away from its direct rays, cooled by her bath in the stream and clad in an Indian maiden’s light garb, she was rejoicing in the summer heat.  She enjoyed the sleepy feeling that dulled the woodland sights and sounds:  the tapping of a woodpecker on a distant tree, the occasional call of a catbird, the soft scurrying of a rabbit or a squirrel, the buzzing of a laden bee—­all mingled into one melody of summer of which she did not consciously distinguish the individual notes.  Just as pleasantly confused were her thoughts, pictures of which her drowsiness blurred the outlines, so that she passed with no effort from the flecked stream she had just left to the moonlit field she and her maidens had encircled a few nights before, chanting harvest songs.  She saw, too, the supple bend of Claw-of-the-Eagle’s body as he had waited for the signal to bound forward in the race at Powhata when he outran the others; and then she seemed again to see him run the day Wansutis saved him from being clubbed to death.

As if the many deeds of violence done that day called up others of their kind, she saw, and did not shrink from seeing, the fate of the Dutchmen at Werowocomoco who had sought to betray Smith to Powhatan.  Her father, angered at them, had had them brained upon the threshold of the house they had built for him.

Then the thoughts of Pocahontas found themselves at Jamestown, whither they now often wandered.  She smiled as she remembered her own amazement at the sight of the two Englishwomen who had lately arrived there:  Mistress Forrest and her maid, Anne Burroughs.  With what curiosity the white women and the Indian girl had measured each other, their hair, their eyes, their curious garments!  Then she beheld in her fancy her friend, her “brother,” so earnest, so brave, who out of opposition always captured victory.  She had witnessed how he forced the colonists to labor, had seen the punishment he meted out to those who disobeyed his commands against swearing—­that strange offence she could not comprehend—­the pouring of cold water in the sleeve of those who uttered oaths, amid the jeers and laughter of their companions.  Her lips continued to smile while she thought of Smith, of the gentle words he had ever ready for her, of the interest he ever manifested at all she had to tell him.  He had talked to her as she knew he talked to few, of his hopes for this little handful of men who must live and grow, and how, if they two, he and his “little Sister,” could bring it about, the English and the Powhatans should forget any grievances against one another and be friends as long as the sky and earth should last.  Perhaps, he had said one day, marriages between the English and the Indians might cement this friendship.  “Perhaps thou thyself, Matoaka,” he had begun, and then had ceased.  Now she wondered again, as she had wondered then, if he had perhaps meant himself.