It was a very quiet world just now; the sun was only a little over the zenith. Only the cries of the sea gulls and the soft swish of the waves broke the silence. It would be pleasant to sleep here as her comrades were sleeping, but if she slept then she would miss the consciousness of her enjoyment. Yet, though she intended to keep awake, when she looked seaward, she felt sure that she must have fallen asleep and was dreaming the strangest of dreams. For nowhere save in dreamland had anyone ever beheld such a sight as seemed to stand out against the horizon. Three great birds, that some shaman had doubtless created with powerful medicine, so large that they almost touched the heavens, were skimming the waves, their white wings blown forward. One, much larger than the others, moved more swiftly than they. Yet never, in a dream or in life, were such birds, and little Pocahontas, who had sprung to her feet, stood gaping in terrified wonder. "Then must I be bewitched!" she cried aloud; "some evil medicine hath befallen me." She called out, and there was a tone in her voice that roused the sleeping maidens as a war drum roused their fathers. "What see ye?" she asked anxiously. "Oh! Pocahontas, we know not," they answered in terror, huddling about her; "answer _thou_ us. What are those strange things that speed over the waves? Whence come they--from the rim of the world?" Pocahontas, the fearless, was frightened. She gave one more glance seaward, and then turning, took to her heels in terror. Her maidens, who had never seen her thus, added her fright to they own, and none stopped until they had reached the lodge at Kecoughtan. The squaws rushed out when they caught sight of the frightened children and tried to soothe them, but they could get no explanation of what had startled them. Finally Opechanchanough strode out, and when Pocahontas had tried to tell him what she had seen his face grew stern. "It is as I feared," he said to another chief. "And so the word which came from the upper cape was true. It is a marvel that bodeth no good." He began to give orders hurriedly; the dugout was brought up to the landing, and he waved Pocahontas and her maidens in with scant ceremony. "I will send a runner to Werowocomoco with news to my brother," he called out to her as the boat was swung out into the river; "he will reach the village by land more quickly than by river. Farewell, Matoaka." And Pocahontas, though she longed to have questioned him in regard to what he had heard and feared, yet rejoiced that she was on her way to her people, to her home where such strange sights as she had just beheld never came. [Illustration: Decorative] CHAPTER VI JOHN SMITH'S TEMPTATION