He was (it must also be noted) the second white man whose life was saved by an Indian princess in America, who subsequently warned her favorite of a plot to kill him. In 1528 Pamphilo de Narvaes landed at Tampa Bay, Florida, and made a disastrous expedition into the interior. Among the Spaniards who were missing as a result of this excursion was a soldier named Juan Ortiz. When De Soto marched into the same country in 1539 he encountered this soldier, who had been held in captivity by the Indians and had learned their language. The story that Ortiz told was this: He was taken prisoner by the chief Ucita, bound hand and foot, and stretched upon a scaffold to be roasted, when, just as the flames were seizing him, a daughter of the chief interposed in his behalf, and upon her prayers Ucita spared the life of the prisoner. Three years afterward, when there was danger that Ortiz would be sacrificed to appease the devil, the princess came to him, warned him of his danger, and led him secretly and alone in the night to the camp of a chieftain who protected him. This narrative was in print before Smith wrote, and as he was fond of such adventures he may have read it. The incidents are curiously parallel. And all the comment needed upon it is that Smith seems to have been peculiarly subject to such coincidences. Our author's selection of a coat of arms, the distinguishing feature of which was “three Turks' heads,” showed little more originality. It was a common device before his day: on many coats of arms of the Middle Ages and later appear “three Saracens' heads,” or “three Moors' heads”--probably most of them had their origin in the Crusades. Smith's patent to use this charge, which he produced from Sigismund, was dated 1603, but the certificate appended to it by the Garter King at Arms, certifying that it was recorded in the register and office of the heralds, is dated 1625. Whether Smith used it before this latter date we are not told. We do not know why he had not as good right to assume it as anybody. [Burke's “Encyclopedia of Heraldry” gives it as granted to Capt. John Smith, of the Smiths of Cruffley, Co. Lancaster, in 1629, and describes it: “Vert, a chev. gu. betw. three Turks' heads couped ppr. turbaned or. Crest-an Ostrich or, holding in the mouth a horseshoe or.”] XVIII. DEATH AND CHARACTER Hardship and disappointment made our hero prematurely old, but could not conquer his indomitable spirit. The disastrous voyage of June, 1615, when he fell into the hands of the French, is spoken of by the Council for New England in 1622 as “the ruin of that poor gentleman, Captain Smith, who was detained prisoner by them, and forced to suffer many extremities before he got free of his troubles;” but he did not know that he was ruined, and did not for a moment relax his efforts to promote colonization and obtain a command, nor relinquish his superintendence of the Western Continent.