It was the second night of Pocahontas's captivity. She had suffered no
restraint further than that necessary to keep her from jumping
overboard. Argall and the sailors treated her with all deference, both
from policy and inclination. Yet she was very unhappy and lonely: she
had always been so free to go and come that it was almost a physical
pain to be imprisoned within the narrow limits of the pinnace. Several
times she had tried to evade the vigilance of the sailors; but her
cunning, which on shore would have shown her a way to escape, was
useless on the unfamiliar boat. Her anger at Japezaws and his squaws
flamed up anew every time she dwelt on their treachery. She went over in
her mind the punishment she would beg her father to inflict upon them.
"Wait!" she called out; and the sailors wondered what she was saying as
she stood there looking over the stern in the direction of the
Patowomeke village, her eyes flashing, "wait until Nautauquas brings ye
to my father to be tortured!"
Then before she had grown tired planning their fate, her thoughts flew
to Claw-of-the-Eagle. Was he lying dead there in the forest? What a
playmate and companion he had always been, she thought; how brave, how
strong! Yet now he must be dead or surely he had managed to follow her.
By nightfall the boat was anchored in the centre of the stream, which
here widened out into a small bay. Captain Argall, who had not known
what to make of Claw-of-the-Eagle's attack, did not feel certain that
Japezaws had not played him false. He had therefore made all speed
possible the first night and the following day. Now his wearied men
needed rest and, as no sign of pursuit appeared, he had granted them
leave to sleep. Only one sailor in the bow was left on watch, but he,
too, drowsed, to wake up with a start, when finding all well, he dropped
off to sleep again.
Pocahontas lay alone in the stem, her head pillowed on a roll of sail
cloth that brought it up to the level of the gunwale. Argall had done
everything he could to make her comfortable and never even spoke to her
except hat in hand and bowing low. Now she, too, had fallen asleep, her
eyes wet with the tears she would not shed during the daylight. She
dreamed she was again at Werowocomoco and that she had just risen from
her sleeping-mat to run out into the moonlight as she so often did.
Suddenly a faint, faint sound half wakened her, a sound scarcely louder
than the lapping of the water against the sides which had lulled her to
sleep. She opened her eyes but did not move, and waited, tense with
excitement. A fish flopped out of the water, then all was silent again
and she closed her heavy eyes once more. Then it came again, not louder
than the wind in the aspen trees on shore:
"Pocahontas!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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