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All these preparations had taken place so quietly that no one who might have been in the church could have discovered the Indian's presence by the aid of his ears alone. Catanaugh had not come to Jamestown with the sole idea of witnessing his sister's wedding. It was not altogether of his own will that he was now about to undertake a dangerous experiment.
He had been shaking the rattle gently for fear it might be heard outside the church; but now, anxious to bring this dreadful task to an end, he began to shake it with all his might in one last challenge to the strange spirit. Bim! Bam! Boum! BOUM! Bim! Catanaugh jumped like a deer that hears the crackle of a twig behind it.
Catanaugh had not felt the same interest in Rolfe as did his brother and had strolled away towards Pocahontas's house. He had a question he was eager to put to her while Nautauquas was not by. He found his sister in her white gown, with brightly embroidered moccasins on her feet and a circlet of beads and feathers about her head.
Catanaugh was afraid he might forget some of the magic words the Okee would speak, which the shamans had told him he must hold fast in his mind as he would hold a slippery eel in his hand. Even if he didn't understand them he must just remember them, because they would be wise enough to interpret them. He meant, too, if he only had the courage, to try to make the Okee prevent the wedding.
Catanaugh was a member of the secret society of Mediwiwin and he was one who had great faith in medicine men and shamans. He never undertook even a hunting expedition unless he had had a shaman consult his Okee to decide if the day would be a lucky one.
On the other side of Powhatan sat one of his squaws, and her brothers and her uncles Opitchapan and Catanaugh squatted directly before him. She herself stood against the wall nearest to the mother of her sister Cleopatra. She wished she had tried to bring in Claw-of-the-Eagle with her.
"I will walk some more," announced Catanaugh and left her. When he thought Pocahontas was no longer observing him, he hastened in the direction of the church. During his former short stay in Jamestown he had never been inside and had thought of it if he paid any attention to it at all as some kind of a storehouse.
"We feared we knew not what evil medicine they might have used against thee, little Snow Feather. How have they dealt with thee in thy captivity?" "But fear no longer," cried Catanaugh, whose glance was fixed upon the canoe of the palefaces; "we shall rescue thee now if we have to kill every one of them yonder to get thee free."
"Believe ye not," she concluded, looking eagerly first at one and then the other of her brothers, "that our father will make peace for my sake with the nation to which my brave belongeth?" Catanaugh said nothing, but Nautauquas laid his hand on his sister's arm and looked her in the eyes searchingly: "Art thou happy?" "Yea, Brother, very happy.
He is dear to me because I know him and because I know him not. Thou surely hast not forgotten how Matoaka ever longed for what lay unknown beyond her." "Hath thy manitou spoken?" questioned Nautauquas again. "The God of the Christians is my god now," she answered. "So should it be," said Nautauquas, although Catanaugh scowled; "a woman must worship the spirits to which her brave prayeth.
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