Pocahontas sprang up and bending over him, poured forth words of tender Indian farewells.  Then, as the bearers approached, she fled towards the gates and into the forest.

John Smith, lying at the prow of the ship, placed there to be nearer the sea as he desired, thought as the ship sailed slowly past the next bend in the river, that he caught sight of a white buckskin skirt between the trees.

[Illustration:  Decorative]

CHAPTER XVI

CAPTAIN ARGALL TAKES A PRISONER

And in the three years that had passed since Smith’s return to England Pocahontas did not forget the trust he had given her.  Many a time had she sent or brought aid to the colonists during the terrible “starving time,” and warded off evil from them.  When she was powerless to prevent the massacre by Powhatan of Ratcliffe and thirty of his men, she succeeded at least in saving the life of one of his men, a young boy.  Henry Spilman, whom she sent to her kindred tribe, the Patowomekes.  With them he lived for many years.

But her relations with Jamestown and its people, though most friendly, were no longer as intimate as they had been when Smith was President, and she went there less and less.

One who rejoiced at her home-keeping was Claw-of-the-Eagle.  He had hated the white men from the beginning and had done his share to destroy them in the Ratcliffe massacre, though he had never told Pocahontas that he had taken part in it.  He was now a brave, tested in courage and endurance in numerous war parties against enemies of his adopted tribe whose honor and advancement he had made his own.  The Powhatan himself had praised his deeds in council.

One day Wansutis said to him: 

“Son, it is time now that thou shouldst take a squaw into thy wigwam.  My hands grow weak and a young squaw will serve thee more swiftly than I. Look about thee, my son, and choose.”

Claw-of-the-Eagle had been thinking many moons that the time had come to bring home a squaw, but he had no need to look about and choose.  He had made his choice, and even though she were the daughter of the great Powhatan, he did not doubt that the werowance would give her to one of his best braves.  And so, one evening in taquitock (autumn), when the red glow of the forests was half veiled in the bluish mist that came with the return of soft languid days after frost had painted the trees and ripened the bristly chinquapins and luscious persimmons, Claw-of-the-Eagle took his flute and set forth alone.

Not far from the lodge of Pocahontas he seated himself upon a stone and began to play the plaintive notes with which the Indian lover tells of his longing for the maiden he would make his squaw.

“Dost thou hear that, Pocahontas?” queried Cleopatra, who had peeped out.  “It is Claw-of-the-Eagle who pipes for thee.  Go forth, Sister, and make glad his heart, for there is none of our braves who can compare with him.”