e set, and the little ships
dropped down the river bound for far-away England.

The last sail passed around the bend in the stream, and only a desolate
blotch in the wilderness was left to tell of England's attempt to
colonize America; only a great gash in the forest, there in the quiet
and the sunlight, at the edge of the river. Within it were the
shapeless ruins of those queer things the pale-faces had made--broken
palisades, yawning houses, the tottering thing they called a church;
and, all about, the hideous, ghastly traces of living and of dying. The
sun went down; and, in the gloom of the summer night, from the forest
and the marsh wild things came creeping to the edge of the clearing,
sat peering there, then ventured nearer--curious, suspicious, greedy.
Soft, noiseless, and ghost-like was the flight of the great owl through
the desolation, and his uncanny cry and the wail of the whippoorwill
filled the night as with mockery and mourning.

Quick, startling, and almost miraculous was the next change in the
scene: a change from the emptiness of desolation to the bustling
fulness of life and colour--the harbour dotted with ships, the little
village crowded with people, James Towne alive again. For even in the
dark hour of abandonment, it was not destined that the settlement
should perish. Even as the colonists sailed down the James, a fleet
bearing reinforcements and stores of supplies was entering the mouth of
the river. The settlers were turned back; and following them came the
fleet, bringing to deserted James Towne not only new colonists, but
pomp, ceremony, and the stately, capable new governor, Lord Delaware.

"He was the one who went to church with so much show and flourish,
wasn't he?" asked Nautica.

"Yes," answered the Commodore confidently, as he happened to have his
book open at the right page. "Lord Delaware attended the little church
in the wilderness in all state, accompanied by his council and guarded
by fifty halberd bearers wearing crimson cloaks. He sat in a green
velvet chair and--"

"Where do you think that church was?" interrupted Nautica.

"Right near here. They say it stood about a hundred yards above the
later one whose ruins are over there in the graveyard. And in that
church Lord Delaware and his council--"

"Yes," Nautica broke in again. "That was the church that they were
married in--John Rolfe and Pocahontas."

"To be sure," said the Commodore. "Let the wedding bells ring. It is