nd she breathed deep breaths of satisfaction when she had resumed them.

Had the manner of her coming to Jamestown been otherwise, with no
treachery and no compulsion which hurt her pride, Pocahontas would have
much enjoyed her stay and a closer view of the ways of the English. As
it was, she was restlessly awaiting the message her father would return
to the demands of the colonists. The next day the messengers came back,
bringing with them the Englishmen who had been held captive by Powhatan
and some of the arms. The werowance promised, they reported, that when
his daughter was restored to him he would give the corn which the white
men asked for.

This answer did not satisfy the Council, and day by day there were
parleyings in which the white men and the red men sought to constrain or
evade each other. Each side recognized the value of Pocahontas as a
hostage. She was not now unhappy. Even if the colonists had not done
their best to requite with kindness all the care she had manifested for
their welfare, policy would have led them to treat her with every
consideration. She was made welcome everywhere, and she went from the
guard house to that of the Governor, asking questions, eager to learn
all details, from the way to fire off a musket to the heating of the
sealing wax and the making of a great red seal which Master John Rolfe,
Secretary and Recorder General of the Colony, affixed to all the
documents sent to the Company in London.

He explained everything to her, taking pains to choose the simplest
words, because he found a keen pleasure in watching her dark eyes
brighten when she began to comprehend something which had puzzled her,
and because her laughter and quick coming and going in the masculine
atmosphere of the council room was a most agreeable change from its
usual dull calm. He was a widower and, though he had got over the
sadness of the loss of his wife, he still missed a woman's
companionship. So he was nothing loath to follow when Pocahontas
commanded one day:

"Come with me about the town and answer more of my questions. I have
stored away as many as a squirrel stores nuts for popanow--what keeps
the ship from floating with the tide down to the great water? Why doth
that man sit with his legs before him?"--and she pointed to a carpenter
who had been imprisoned in the stocks in punishment for theft--"And
why?"--...

And Rolfe found himself kept as busy as Mr. Squirrel himself in cracking
her questi