r,
being but a child of twelve or thirteen years of age, whose
compassionate pitiful heart, of my desperate estate, gave me much cause
to respect her--she hazarded the beating out of her own brains to save
mine ... the most and least I can do is to tell you this, because none
so oft tried it as myself, and the rather being of so great a spirit,
however her stature, if she should not be well received, seeing this
Kingdom may rightly have a Kingdom by her means--' And much more there
was, Lady Rebecca, which I cannot now recall."

Lady De La Ware did not know that Pocahontas believed Smith dead, and
Pocahontas, not imagining anything else, thought Smith must have written
this letter from Jamestown before he died; and her heart grew warm
thinking how, even dying, he had done what he could for her happiness on
the mere chance of her going to England. The truth of the matter was
that Smith was then at Plymouth, making ready to start on an expedition
to New England; and though he did not expect to see Pocahontas, he
wished England, and first of all England's Queen, to know what they owed
this Indian girl.

It happened not long after that "La Belle Sauvage," as the Londoners
sometimes called Pocahontas, and Rolfe were being entertained at a fair
country seat. An English girl, much of the age of her guest, whose
curiosity about the ways of the Indians was restrained only by her
courtesy, had been showing her through the beautiful old garden. They
had talked of Virginia, and Mistress Alicia coaxed:

"Wilt thou not take me with thee. Lady Rebecca, when thou returnest
thither?

"But see," and she peered through an opening in the high yew hedge,
"yonder cometh Master Rolfe with a party of gentlemen. Oh! one of them
is a brave figure of a man, though he weareth not such fine clothes as
some of the others. By my troth! 'tis Captain John Smith, and of course
he cometh to greet thee. I would I might stay to hear what ye two old
friends have to say to each other."

It seemed to Pocahontas that hours elapsed during the few minutes she
was alone after Mistress Alicia left her, while her husband was guiding
her guests to her through the garden's winding mazes. How could Smith be
alive when she knew that he was dead? Even as she caught in the distance
the sound of his voice, she asked herself if in truth she had ever heard
of his death from anyone but the councillors in Jamestown.

The well-known voice was no longer weak as when she