Claw-of-the-Eagle rose that he might take better aim and shot an arrow at the Englishman.  It hit the astounded captain on his leathern doublet, but did no more than knock the wind out of him.

“Shoot into the trees there,” he commanded, still holding on to Pocahontas.

One of the sailors started to aim into the thicket at an unseen enemy, when Claw-of-the-Eagle, realizing that the boat was rapidly swinging out of his range, ran out on to an exposed bluff and notched a second arrow.  Before it left the string, however, the bullet from the soldier’s musket had hit him in the shoulder.  As he fell Pocahontas uttered a cry of horror, for she had seen who her stricken defender was.

[Illustration:  Decorative]

CHAPTER XVII

POCAHONTAS LOSES A FRIEND

It was the second night of Pocahontas’s captivity.  She had suffered no restraint further than that necessary to keep her from jumping overboard.  Argall and the sailors treated her with all deference, both from policy and inclination.  Yet she was very unhappy and lonely:  she had always been so free to go and come that it was almost a physical pain to be imprisoned within the narrow limits of the pinnace.  Several times she had tried to evade the vigilance of the sailors; but her cunning, which on shore would have shown her a way to escape, was useless on the unfamiliar boat.  Her anger at Japezaws and his squaws flamed up anew every time she dwelt on their treachery.  She went over in her mind the punishment she would beg her father to inflict upon them.

“Wait!” she called out; and the sailors wondered what she was saying as she stood there looking over the stern in the direction of the Patowomeke village, her eyes flashing, “wait until Nautauquas brings ye to my father to be tortured!”

Then before she had grown tired planning their fate, her thoughts flew to Claw-of-the-Eagle.  Was he lying dead there in the forest?  What a playmate and companion he had always been, she thought; how brave, how strong!  Yet now he must be dead or surely he had managed to follow her.

By nightfall the boat was anchored in the centre of the stream, which here widened out into a small bay.  Captain Argall, who had not known what to make of Claw-of-the-Eagle’s attack, did not feel certain that Japezaws had not played him false.  He had therefore made all speed possible the first night and the following day.  Now his wearied men needed rest and, as no sign of pursuit appeared, he had granted them leave to sleep.  Only one sailor in the bow was left on watch, but he, too, drowsed, to wake up with a start, when finding all well, he dropped off to sleep again.

Pocahontas lay alone in the stem, her head pillowed on a roll of sail cloth that brought it up to the level of the gunwale.  Argall had done everything he could to make her comfortable and never even spoke to her except hat in hand and bowing low.  Now she, too, had fallen asleep, her eyes wet with the tears she would not shed during the daylight.  She dreamed she was again at Werowocomoco and that she had just risen from her sleeping-mat to run out into the moonlight as she so often did.