ay
and night. He speaks with eloquence of the nations of the earth, of
white men, yellow men, black men, and red men, of his own country and
its grandeurs, and would explain antipodes.

Apparently all is waste breath and of no avail, for in an hour see him
bound to a tree, a sturdy figure of a man, bearded and moustached, with
a high forehead, clad in shirt and jerkin and breeches and hosen and
shoon, all by this time, we may be sure, profoundly in need of repair.
The tree and Smith are ringed by Indians, each of whom has an arrow
fitted to his bow. Almost one can hear a knell ringing in the forest!
But Opechancanough, moved by the compass, or willing to hear more of
seventeenth-century science, raises his arm and stops the execution.
Unbinding Smith, they take him with them as a trophy. Presently all
reach their town of Orapaks.

Here he was kindly treated. He saw Indian dances, heard Indian orations.
The women and children pressed about him and admired him greatly. Bread
and venison were given him in such quantity that he feared that they
meant to fatten and eat him. It is, moreover, dangerous to be considered
powerful where one is scarcely so. A young Indian lay mortally ill, and
they took Smith to him and demanded that forthwith he be cured. If the
white man could kill--how they were not able to see--he could likewise
doubtless restore life. But the Indian presently died. His father,
crying out in fury, fell upon the stranger who could have done so much
and would not! Here also coolness saved the white man.

Smith was now led in triumph from town to town through the winter woods.
The James was behind him, the Chickahominy also; he was upon new great
rivers, the Pamunkey and the Rappahannock. All the villages were much
alike, alike the still woods, the sere patches from which the corn had
been taken, the bear, the deer, the foxes, the turkeys that were
met with, the countless wild fowl. Everywhere were the same curious,
crowding savages, the fires, the rustic cookery, the covering skins
of deer and fox and otter, the oratory, the ceremonial dances, the
manipulations of medicine men or priests--these last, to the Englishmen,
pure "devils with antique tricks." Days were consumed in this going from
place to place. At one point was produced a bag of gunpowder, gained
in some way from Jamestown. It was being kept with care to go into the
earth in the spring and produce, when summer came, some wonderful crop.

Opechanc