For the Love of Lady Margaret: A Romance of the Lost ColonyWilson, William Thomas
General
For the Love of Lady Margaret: A Romance of the Lost Colony
Wilson, William Thomas
Roanoke Colony -- Fiction
"John Marsden," he answered, cringing low, "a poor apothecary at thy
lordship's service, who seeks his fortune in the new region beyond the
sea."
"And how camest thou to know the Indian's language?" I said sternly.
"Answer me that."
"I have been in the household of Sir Walter Raleigh for the last two
years or more," he replied, "where the savage was; and having little to
do much of the time, I amused myself by learning the native tongue. I
expect it to be of service to me in Virginia." And he bowed with a pale
smile upon his hollow face.
"I doubt not that thou wilt find it so," I said, turning my back upon
him, for I distrusted his knavish face. If ever Dame Nature had stamped
upon a mortal countenance the brand of a rogue, that one was John
Marsden.
I saw much of the Indian in the long days and weeks that followed; he
had taken a strange fancy to me, and dogged my footsteps, as though
he were some tame animal, and I his master. One morning he brought me
a little basket that he had cut in the shape of a wolf's head from a
nut. As I looked at the beautiful carving, I realized how much work and
labor it must have cost him, and was touched by his thought for me.
"The Eagle is pleased," said the Indian.
"Yes," I answered. "I thank Manteo, and will wear it around my neck,"
and I fastened it in the little gold chain with the coin and trinket of
my lady.
The savage's eye flashed with pleasure.
"It is well," he answered, a look of delight passing over his dark
face for a moment, as a bolt of lightning flashes for an instant
over the lowering clouds, and then vanishes. "It is enough." And as
though ashamed of his emotion, he left me, and disappeared down the
companionway.
I learned to speak the tongue of Manteo; it was very like the one that
I had learned before. I amused myself by talking with the Indian,
becoming more fluent in his language. We had grown to be fast friends,
and I had begun to think much of him. He was a strange creature;
he never forgot a kind word, and he loved his friends almost to
idolatry, and despised his foes with a deep implacable hate, that was a
revelation to me.
He called me "the Eagle." Why I never knew, unless it was from some
fancied resemblance that he thought he saw in my face to that bird.
"Why dost thou call me the Eagle, Manteo?" I asked him one day.
"My brother is like the Eagle," he answered gravely; "he flies far
above the dull realms of earth. The Eagle is the chief of birds, lordly
and courageous, even as my brother is a chief among his fellows," and
he scanned my face with his dark eyes.
"Manteo is mistaken," I answered with a laugh, "I am no chief."
"Manteo was not born yesterday," he replied. "He knows the royal blood
when he sees it. My brother is a great chief."
I did not reply; if he chose to think me a chief, well and good; and
rising to my feet, I walked to where Governor White stood, looking out
over the water.
"Governor," I said, "hast thou an extra hatchet that thou canst spare
me?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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