ng Captain Audley he
promised to make inquiries among the tribes of his nation. While they
were speaking, the head of the party sent out to follow the trail of the
Indians who had carried off Gilbert and Fenton arrived. He and his
people had traced them, he said, far to the north, when they found
themselves in the country of a hostile tribe, from among whom they had
great difficulty in escaping. On hearing this, Powhattan was
exceedingly wroth, and threatened to punish the Annaboles, the tribe
spoken of, who owed him, he affirmed, allegiance. Rolfe, however,
entreated that he would employ mild measures, lest the Annaboles might
retaliate on their two prisoners. This information was on the whole
unsatisfactory. Gilbert and Fenton might, it was hoped, be still alive,
but that they had been carried to a distance was certain, and their
recovery would be difficult, as Powhattan, notwithstanding his boasted
power, could, it was clear, afford them no assistance.

"It seems to me, Vaughan, that we must trust to our own strong arms and
mother-wit to recover the two lads," observed Captain Layton, when they
had parted from the chief. "What say you, Roger?"

"I hold to your opinion, father; if we could get together some thirty
trusty fellows, and the means of carrying our provisions, we would march
from one end of the country to the other, and compel those knavish
Indians at the point of our swords to deliver up their prisoners,"
answered Roger; "we might then, perchance, fall in also with Captain
Audley, if he is, as I trust, still in the land of the living."

"Those `ifs' and `ans' are stubborn things," observed the captain.

"We might, however, manage to carry provisions on our shoulders for a
week or more," said Roger, "and thus be enabled to march for three or
four days inland from the shore, and back again without the need of
hunting, provided we could keep in the open country, and not get
entangled among forests or rocky defiles where our foes might pick us
off without our being able to reach them."

"I know not whether we should gain much by that, unless we could manage
to surprise an Indian village, and capture some of their chief men to
hold as hostages till they agreed to give up their captives. These
Indians are very different to the cowardly tribes we have been wont to
meet with on the Spanish Main, as experience should already have taught
you," observed the captain: "still, with discipline and determinati