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D' ye know what I had of him last year? I turned and left the door and the house. I could not thrust a fight upon a drunken man. Ten yards away, suddenly and without any warning of his approach, I found beside me the Indian Nantauquas. "I have been to the woods to hunt," he said, in the slow musical English Rolfe had taught him.
Three suns, Nantauquas had said: on Friday, then, the blow would fall. Three days! Once at Jamestown, it would take three days to warn each lonely scattered settlement, to put the colony into any posture of defense. What of the leagues of danger-haunted forest to be traversed before even a single soul of the three thousand could be warned?
My head pained me, and as I ran I saw men and women stealing in and out among the trees before me: Pocahontas with her wistful eyes and braided hair and finger on her lips; Nantauquas; Dale, the knight-marshal, and Argall with his fierce, unscrupulous face; my cousin George Percy, and my mother with her stately figure, her embroidery in her hands.
"You were wont to speak plainly, Nantauquas," I answered him. "I am not fond of riddles." Again he waited, as though he found speech difficult. I stared at him in amazement, he was so changed in so short a time. He spoke at last: "When the dance is over, and the fires are low, and the sunrise is at hand, then will Opechancanough come to you to bid you farewell.
"I think you good knight and true, Nantauquas, and my friend, moreover, who saved my life." His smile was like his sister's, quick and very bright, and leaving behind it a most entire gravity. Together we sat down by the fire and ate of the sylvan breakfast, with shy brown maidens to serve us and with the sunshine streaming down upon us through the trees that were growing faintly green.
Picked men went with him, and they were gone for hours; but when they returned they bore no trophies, brute or human. What they did we could not guess. We might have had much comfort in Nantauquas, but the morning after our arrival in this village the Emperor sent him upon an embassy to the Rappahannocks, and when for the fourth time the forest stood black against the sunset he had not returned.
"The night grows wilder, and honest folks should be abed. Nantauquas, good-night. When will you have tamed your panther?" "It is now the moon of cohonks," answered the Indian. "When the moon of blossoms is here, the panther shall roll at the beautiful lady's feet." "The moon of blossoms!" I said. "The moon of blossoms is a long way off. I have panthers myself to tame before it comes.
Nearer and nearer it came, showing no signs of anger and none of fear, and paying no attention to the withered branch with which Diccon tried to scare it off. When it was so close that we could see the white of its breast it stopped, looking at us with large unfaltering eyes, and slightly moving its tail to and fro. "A tame panther!" ejaculated Diccon. "It must be the one Nantauquas tamed, sir.
At the last it seemed best that he, who by virtue of his peculiar relations with the Indians was ever our negotiator, should remain with half our troop at the block house, while I reported to the Governor. So I left him, and Nantauquas with him, and rode back to Jamestown, reaching the town some hours sooner than I was expected.
There will be a great feast to-day, and to-night the young men and maidens will dance before you. Then in the morning you will go." "Will you not come with us?" I asked. "You are ever welcome amongst us, Nantauquas, both for your sister's sake and for your own. Rolfe will rejoice to have you with him again; he ever grudgeth you to the forest." He shook his head again.
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