After Rolfe had left him to enter the Governor's house, Nautauquas
turned to find out what Catanaugh was doing, but could see nothing of
him.
Catanaugh had not felt the same interest in Rolfe as did his brother and
had strolled away towards Pocahontas's house. He had a question he was
eager to put to her while Nautauquas was not by. He found his sister in
her white gown, with brightly embroidered moccasins on her feet and a
circlet of beads and feathers about her head.
"Wilt thou not adorn thyself," he asked, "with the bright chains of the
white men?"
"Nay, Brother," she answered; "it may be that I shall wear the strange
robes some day, and the bright chains and jewels I will don to-morrow
when I am the squaw of an Englishman; but to-day I am still only the
daughter of Powhatan."
Catanaugh said nothing further, yet he still stood in the doorway.
"Enter," invited Pocahontas, "and behold how I live."
"I see enough," he answered, turning his head from side to side; "but
where dwelleth the white man's Okee?"
"The God of the Christians?" she asked, puzzled at his question; "in the
sky above."
"But where do the shamans call to him?" he continued.
"Yonder in the church, that building with the peak to it," she pointed
out.
"I will walk some more," announced Catanaugh and left her. When he
thought Pocahontas was no longer observing him, he hastened in the
direction of the church. During his former short stay in Jamestown he
had never been inside and had thought of it--if he paid any attention
to it at all--as some kind of a storehouse.
He found the door open and entered quietly, glancing cautiously about
until he had assured himself that it was empty. Then he pushed the door
to and fastened it with the bolt. This done, he set about examining the
building curiously. At the end, towards the rising sun, was an elevation
of three steps which made him think of the raised dais that ran across
the end of Powhatan's ceremonial lodge. This was lined with the reddish
wood of the cedar, and there was a dark wooden table covered with a
white cloth standing in it, and the sun shining through the windows
above made the vases filled with flowers glisten brightly. In the part
where he stood there were many benches and chairs, and everywhere that
it was possible to stand or hang them, was a profusion of fragrant
flowering branches.
The very simplicity of the church awed him; had there been a
multiplicity of furnishings, of strange objects whose use he could not
comprehend, he would have felt he had something definite to watch and
fear. His impulse was to flee out into the sunshine, and he turned
towards the door. Then he remembered his object in coming and stood
still again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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