"I sent them off to sleep as soon as the Sun came back to us," she
answered, looking up at the tall youth beside her. "I can take care of
him myself during the day."
"Hast thou seen him yet? Tell me what is he like. I saw him but for the
minute yesterday."
"He sleeps still. I peeped between the openings of the bark covering
here and beheld him lying there with all those queer garments. I am
eager for his awakening; there are so many questions I would ask him."
"Let me have a look, too," pleaded the boy.
Pocahontas nodded and motioned graciously to the opening of the lodge.
It pleased her to grant favors, and Powhatan sometimes smiled when he
marked how like his own manner of bestowing them was that of his
daughter.
With the same caution with which he crept after a deer in a thicket,
Claw-of-the-Eagle moved on hands and knees along the ground within the
lodge. Lying flat on his stomach, he gazed at the Englishman. He had
heard repeated about the village the night before the details of his
rescue as they had taken place within the ceremonial wigwam. Those who
told him were divided in their opinions; some looked upon Powhatan's
decision as a danger to them all, and others scouted the idea that those
palefaces were to be feared by warriors such as the Powhatans.
Claw-of-the-Eagle, however, did not waver in his belief: each of the
white strangers should be killed off as quickly as might be. His loyalty
to his adopted tribe was as great as if his forefathers had sat about
its council fires always. He was sorry that Pocahontas, much as she
pleased him, had persuaded her father to save the life of the first of
the palefaces that had fallen into his power. He believed The Powhatan
himself now regretted that he had yielded to affection and to an ancient
custom, and that he would gladly see his enemy dead, in order that the
news carried to his interloping countrymen might serve as a warning of
the fate that awaited them all.
Suppose then--the thought flashed through his brain--that he,
Claw-of-the-Eagle, should make this wish a fact! Powhatan would never
punish the doer of the deed.
He crept nearer still to the sleeping man, loosening the knife in his
girdle. There was no sound within the lodge, only the faint crooning of
Pocahontas without; yet something, some feeling of danger, aroused the
Englishman. Through his half-closed lids he scarce distinguished the
slowly advancing red body from the red earth over which it was moving.
But when the boy was close enough to touch him with the outstretched
hand. Smith opened his eyes wide. He did not move, did not cry out,
though he saw the knife in the long thin fingers; all he did was to fix
his gaze sternly upon the boy's face. Claw-of-the-Eagle tried to strike,
but with those fearless eyes upon him he could not move his arm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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