im?"

"No," he answered. As he spoke, the door was opened and the gaoler put
in his head. "A messenger from Master Rolfe, captain." He drew back, and
the Indian Nantauquas entered the room.

Rolfe I had seen twice since the arrival of the George at Jamestown, but
the Indian had not been with him. The young chief now came forward and
touched the hand I held out to him. "My brother will be here before the
sun touches the tallest pine," he announced in his grave, calm voice.
"He asks Captain Percy to deny himself to any other that may come. He
wishes to see him alone."

"I shall hardly be troubled with company," I said. "There's a
bear-baiting toward."

Nantauquas smiled. "My brother asked me to find a bear for to-day. I
bought one from the Paspaheghs for a piece of copper, and took him to
the ring below the fort."

"Where all the town will presently be gone," I said. "I wonder what
Rolfe did that for!"

Filling a cup with sack, I pushed it to the Indian across the table.
"You are little in the woods nowadays, Nantauquas."

His fine dark face clouded ever so slightly. "Opechancanough has dreamt
that I am Indian no longer. Singing birds have lied to him, telling him
that I love the white man, and hate my own color. He calls me no more
his brave, his brother Powhatan's dear son. I do not sit by his council
fire now, nor do I lead his war bands. When I went last to his lodge and
stood before him, his eyes burned me like the coals the Monacans once
closed my hands upon. He would not speak to me."

"It would not fret me if he never spoke again," I said. "You have been
to the forest to-day?"

"Yes," he replied, glancing at the smear of leaf mould upon his beaded
moccasins. "Captain Percy's eyes are quick; he should have been an
Indian. I went to the Paspaheghs to take them the piece of copper. I
could tell Captain Percy a curious thing"--

"Well?" I demanded, as he paused.

"I went to the lodge of the werowance with the copper, and found him not
there. The old men declared that he had gone to the weirs for fish,--he
and ten of his braves. The old men lied. I had passed the weirs of the
Paspaheghs, and no man was there. I sat and smoked before the lodge, and
the maidens brought me chinquapin cakes and pohickory; for Nantauquas
is a prince and a welcome guest to all save Opechancanough. The old men
smoked, with their eyes upon the ground, each seeing only the days when
he was even as Nantauquas. They never knew when