I observed that among the ranks of the women one girl watched not the dancers but us. Now and then she glanced impatiently at the wheeling figures, but her eyes always returned to us. At length I became aware that she must have some message to deliver or warning to give. Once when I made a slight motion as if to go to her, she shook her head and laid her finger on her lips. Presently I rose and, making my way to the werowance of the village, where he sat with his eyes fixed on the spectacle, told him that I was wearied and would go to my hut, to rest for the few hours that yet remained of the night. He listened dreamily, but made no offer to escort me. After a moment he acquiesced in my departure, and Diccon and I quietly left the press of savages and began to cross the firelit turf between them and our lodge. When we had reached its entrance, we paused and looked back to the throng we had left. Every back seemed turned to us, every eye intent upon the leaping figures. Swiftly and silently we walked across the bit of even ground to the friendly trees and found ourselves in a thin strip of shadow. Beneath the trees, waiting for us, was the Indian maid. She would not speak or tarry, but flitted before us as dusk and noiseless as a moth, and we followed her into the darkness beyond the firelight. Here a wigwam rose in our path; the girl, holding aside the mats that covered the entrance, motioned to us to enter. A fire was burning within the lodge and it showed us Nantaquas standing with folded arms. "Nantaquas!" I exclaimed, and would have touched him but that with a slight motion of his hand he kept me back. "Well!" I asked at last. "What is the matter, my friend?" For a full minute he made no answer, and when he did speak his voice matched his strained and troubled features. "My _friend_," he said, "I am going to show myself a friend indeed to the English, to the strangers who were not content with their own hunting-grounds beyond the great salt water. When I have done this, I do not know that Captain Percy will call me 'friend'." "You were wont to speak plainly, Nantaquas," 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, Opechancanough will come to you to bid you farewell. He will give you the pearls he wears about his neck for a present to the governor and a bracelet for yourself. Also he will give you three men for a guard through the forest. He has messages of love to send the white men, and he would send them by you who were his enemy and his captive. So all the white men shall believe in his love." "Well!" I said drily as he paused. "I will bear the messages. What next?"