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"Dost thou then like these paleface strangers and their ways?" he asked. "There is much about them I do not understand," replied Nautauquas; "how they can wear so many garments; why they build them houses that let in no air; why they come here when they have villages beyond the seas; yet I know that they are brave and that their medicine is mighty." Pocahontas spoke little.
Nautauquas, son of Powhatan, was among the most eager for action. He had won for himself the name of a great brave and a mighty hunter though still so young. Many a scalp hung to the ridgepole of his lodge and many a bear and wildcat had he slain at great risk to his life. Now here was a new way to distinguish himself to go forth against dangers he could not even foresee.
Nautauquas was away with Claw-of-the-Eagle on a foray against the Massawomekes, the latter having sworn to her that he would now accomplish deeds to make the chiefs of his tribe declare him worthy to be called a real Powhatan brave. Had her brother been at Werowocomoco, she might have confided her fear to him; as it was, she realized that she alone must discover her father's intentions.
All this he was thinking when he bade Nautauquas wait; but there was no one who read his mind, yet no one who dared to disobey him. When Nautauquas came out from his father's lodge he took his bow and quiver and went into the forest to hunt. In his disappointment he had a hatred of more words and a longing for deeds.
I have found many rare plants this night; it hath been a lucky one, perchance because the young princess was also abroad in the forest." All the children of the tribe were afraid of the old woman. They told each other tales of how she could turn those she disliked into dogs, bats or turtles. And now even Nautauquas remembered how he had run from her when he was a little fellow.
The Powhatan gazed at her curiously. She waited for him to speak, then as he kept silent, she turned and looked straight into his face and asked: "Father, dost thou know how hard it is to be a girl? Nautauquas, my brother, is a swift runner, yet I am fleeter than he. I can shoot as straight as he, though not so far. I can go without food and drink as long as he.
Then she turned around and knelt, her elbows on her brother's knees, and asked: "Tell me, Nautauquas, tell me the truth, since thou canst speak naught else; what manitou is in me that I am like to rushing water, to a stream that hurries forward? What shall I become?"
But it seemeth to me that thou art different from other maids. They do not care to rise from their sleeping mats and go forth alone into the forest." "Perhaps they have not an arrow inside of them as have I." Nautauquas had seated himself in the crotch of a dogwood-tree and looked with interest at his sister below him. "An arrow?" he queried; "what dost thou mean?"
Nautauquas, seeing that she was almost asleep, took hold of her arm and made her lean on him. As they approached the spot where he had first come across her dancing, they noticed a human figure crouched on the ground. Even in the moonlight, grown dimmer as dawn approached, he could see that it was an old squaw. Pocahontas recognized old Wansutis, a gatherer of herbs and roots.
Suddenly before him he saw a creature dancing down the moon-path, whirling and springing about while a pair of rabbits, that were startled in crossing the path, scurried off into a clump of sassafras bushes nearby. Then, as if reassured, they sat there calmly, even when the dancing figure came closer to them. And Nautauquas heard singing, though the words of the song did not come to his ears.
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