me war
chief again. We have smoked the peace pipe together--my father's brother
and I--in the starlight, sitting before his lodge, with the wide marshes
and the river dark at our feet. Singing birds in the forest have been
many; evil tales have they told; Opechancanough has stopped his ears
against their false singing. My friends are his friends, my brother is
his brother, my word is his word: witness the armlet that hath no like;
that Opechancanough brought with him when he came from no man knows
where to the land of the Powhatans, many Huskanawings ago; that no
white men but these have ever seen. Opechancanough is at hand; he comes
through the forest with his two hundred warriors that are as tall as
Susquehannocks, and as brave as the children of Wahunsonacock. He comes
to the temples to pray to Kiwassa for a great hunting. Will you, when
you lie at his feet, that he ask you, 'Where is the friend of my friend,
of my war chief, of the Panther who is one with me again?'"

There came a long, deep breath from the Indians, then a silence, in
which they fell back, slowly and sullenly; whipped hounds, but with the
will to break that leash of fear.

"Hark!" said Nantauquas, smiling. "I hear Opechancanough and his
warriors coming over the leaves."

The noise of many footsteps was indeed audible, coming toward the
hollow from the woods beyond. With a burst of cries, the priests and
the conjurer whirled away to bear the welcome of Okee to the royal
worshiper, and at their heels went the chief men of the Pamunkeys.
The werowance of the Paspaheghs was one that sailed with the wind; he
listened to the deepening sound, and glanced at the son of Powhatan
where he stood, calm and confident, then smoothed his own countenance
and made a most pacific speech, in which all the blame of the late
proceedings was laid upon the singing birds. When he had done speaking,
the young men tore the stakes from the earth and threw them into a
thicket, while the women plucked apart the newly kindled fire and flung
the brands into a little near-by stream, where they went out in a cloud
of hissing steam.

I turned to the Indian who had wrought this miracle. "Art sure it is
not a dream, Nantauquas?" I said. "I think that Opechancanough would not
lift a finger to save me from all the deaths the tribes could invent."

"Opechancanough is very wise," he answered quietly. "He says that now
the English will believe in his love indeed when they see that he