had last heard it
bid her farewell. There they were, the gentlemen all bowing to her but
remaining in the background, while Rolfe came forward with Smith.

"I have brought thee an old friend, Rebecca," he said.

Pocahontas saluted him, but words were impossible.

John Smith afterwards wrote concerning this interview:

"After a modest salutation, without any word, she turned about, obscured
her face, as not seeming well contented, and in that humor her husband
with divers others, we all left her two or three hours."

Seeing that she preferred to be alone, the men departed to talk over the
affairs of the Virginia Colony since Smith had left Jamestown.
Pocahontas, sitting quietly on a garden bench near the carp pond, went
over in her thought all that had taken place in her own life since then.

Then she saw him coming towards her again, alone, and she stretched out
her hand to him.

"My father," she cried, "dost thou remember the old days in Wingandacoa
when thou earnest first to Werowocomoco and wert my prisoner?"

"I remember well. Lady Rebecca," he said, leaning down to kiss her hand,
"and I am ever thy most grateful debtor."

"Call me not by that strange name. Matoaka am I for thee as always. Dost
thou remember when I came at night through the forest to warn thee?"

"I remember, Matoaka; how could I forget it?"

"Dost thou remember the day when, lying wounded before thy door, thou
didst make me promise to be ever a friend to Jamestown and the English?"

"I have thought of it many a day."

"I have kept my promise, Father, have I not?"

"Nobly, Matoaka; but it is not meet that thou shouldst call me father."

Then Pocahontas tossed her head emphatically, and this gesture brought
back to Smith the bright young Indian maiden who, for a moment, had
seemed to him disguised by the stately clothes of an English matron.

"Thou didst promise Powhatan," she cried, "what was thine should be his,
and he the like to thee; thou calledst him father, being in his land a
stranger, and by the same reason so must I do thee."

"But, Princess," he objected, "it is different here. The King would like
it not if I allowed it here; he might say it was indeed truth what mine
enemies say of me, that I plan to raise myself above them."

"Wert thou afraid to come into my father's country and caused fear in
him and all his people but me, and fearest thou here I should call thee
father? I tell thee then I will and thou shalt call me