l, and you
shall call me child, and so I will be for ever and ever your countryman.
They did tell us always you were dead, and I knew no other till I came
to Plymouth; yet Powhatan did command Uttamatomakin to seek you and to
know the truth, because your countrymen will lie much.'"

The only reason that exists for believing the report of this interview,
coming from the source it does, is the fact that it tells heavily
against the recounter, though his invariable, smug self-conceit prevents
him from seeing this aspect of the matter. The dignified reproach of
Smith's neglect, the pathetic appeal to the courtesies which had been
lavished upon him, she was too proud to allude to her rescue of his
brains from the impending club,--and the proud anger which breaks forth
in the determination that she will call him "father," as is her right,
form a fine contrast to the petty and selfish attitude of her erstwhile
friend, who would have "excused" her using the tender title of father,
but that she was "a king's daughter" and so might by use of the word
place him in a false position toward his patron, Prince Charles. Of
course, this was the merest excuse; he knew perfectly well that such a
thing was ridiculous; but he needed some excuse for his unmanly attitude
toward the woman who had saved his life and whose father had called him
friend. It is true that King James had objected to the "presumption" of
Rolfe in marrying a "lady of royal birth "; but even that absurd
attitude of the king gives no excuse for Smith, since between marriage
with a "princess" and the mere use of the formal but affectionate title
of "father" lay a broad gulf.

The contemptible captain met his savior no more; for the Lady Rebecca,
as Pocahontas was now called, after being presented at court and winning
universal admiration by her dignified bearing and lovable disposition,
died of consumption just as she was about to set sail for her native
land. She left one child, a son, by Rolfe, and through him her blood
flows in the veins of some of the Virginia families of our own day. John
Randolph of Roanoke made it his boast that he was one of the descendants
of the Indian "princess"; but then John Randolph was very eccentric
indeed in more ways than one.

If more than proportional space has been devoted to this history of
Pocahontas, it is because in the narrative, and especially in the
characteristic glimpse obtained through the excerpt from Smith's story
of th