ce to return to them. If she did not
take it, what lay ahead of her? A terror of the unknown overcame her for
the first time. The knowledge that an old and tried friend was near was
as grateful as a light shining before one on a dark night. Yet she
answered:

"I can not go with thee, Claw-of-the-Eagle."

The young brave uttered a low murmur of astonishment.

"Dost thou not know," he asked, "that Japezaws hath betrayed thee; that
thou art to be kept captive in Jamestown in order to force The Powhatan
to do whatever the English desire of him?"

"Yes, I know. Captain Argall hath told me all."

"And yet thou dost hesitate? Art thou, the daughter of a mighty
werowance, _afraid_ to try to escape?"

She did not deign to reply to such a charge, but whispered instead:

"Hadst thou come last night I should have harkened to thee only too
gladly. In truth, I had determined to escape myself this night, no
matter what the difficulties might be. Pocahontas beareth a knife and
knoweth how to use it. But to-day I have come to think otherwise, for
there have been long hours in which to think. Thou knowest that
captivity is as wearisome to me as to a wild dove; yet as I sat here
alone with naught to do, I followed a trail in my mind that led to
Jamestown, and so I am minded to go thither."

"But why?" asked Claw-of-the-Eagle.

"Because by going I believe I can serve both our nation and the English.
My Brother, John Smith, said we must be friends, and I promised him e'er
he left to watch ever over the welfare of his people. My father loveth
me so much that in order to free me I think he will do as the English
wish, and so I will go with Captain Argall that the strife may cease
between them and us. But," and here her voice rose so that
Claw-of-the-Eagle had to remind her of their danger by a pressure on the
hand, "but I will not intercede for that traitor Japezaws and his crafty
squaw. My father may wreak vengeance on them when he will."

Her voice, low as it was, had risen in her emotion, and the boy's keen
hearing had caught the movement of a man's foot on the wooden deck. They
kept still, breathless, for a moment; then as all was still again,
Claw-of-the-Eagle asked sadly, in a tone that mourned as wind through
the pine trees:

"Then thou wilt not come with me? I had built a lodge for thee, Matoaka,
with a smoke hole wide enough to let in the whole moon thou lovest. My
arrows had killed young deer and turkeys and I had smoke