Werowocomoco who had sought to betray Smith to Powhatan. Her father,
angered at them, had had them brained upon the threshold of the house
they had built for him.

Then the thoughts of Pocahontas found themselves at Jamestown, whither
they now often wandered. She smiled as she remembered her own amazement
at the sight of the two Englishwomen who had lately arrived there:
Mistress Forrest and her maid, Anne Burroughs. With what curiosity the
white women and the Indian girl had measured each other, their hair,
their eyes, their curious garments! Then she beheld in her fancy her
friend, her "brother," so earnest, so brave, who out of opposition
always captured victory. She had witnessed how he forced the colonists
to labor, had seen the punishment he meted out to those who disobeyed
his commands against swearing--that strange offence she could not
comprehend--the pouring of cold water in the sleeve of those who uttered
oaths, amid the jeers and laughter of their companions. Her lips
continued to smile while she thought of Smith, of the gentle words he
had ever ready for her, of the interest he ever manifested at all she
had to tell him. He had talked to her as she knew he talked to few, of
his hopes for this little handful of men who must live and grow, and
how, if they two, he and his "little Sister," could bring it about, the
English and the Powhatans should forget any grievances against one
another and be friends as long as the sky and earth should last.
Perhaps, he had said one day, marriages between the English and the
Indians might cement this friendship. "Perhaps thou thyself, Matoaka,"
he had begun, and then had ceased. Now she wondered again, as she had
wondered then, if he had perhaps meant himself.

Such a possibility was an exciting one, and she would have been glad to
let her mind explore it fully; but her eyes were heavy and the pine
needles soft and fragrant, and soon the beaver, who from a hollow
beneath the exposed roots of the oak over the stream had been watching
her bright eyes, seeing them closed, slipped forth to begin again his
work on the dam her feet had flattened out.

Though Nautauquas, returning an hour later from a peaceful mission to a
confederated tribe, made scarcely more noise than the beaver, Pocahontas
awoke and raised her head and loosening the needles from her hair,
sprang up.

"Greetings, Matoaka!" called out her brother. "Thou wert as snugly
hidden here as a deer."

"What news,