ON THE TRAIL OF A THIEF
Pocahontas, clothed in European garb, was returning to her home at Varina from the river, whither she had accompanied John Rolfe half a day's journey towards Jamestown. The boatmen had escorted her from the skiff and now doffed their hats as she bade them come no further.
In the two years which had passed since her marriage, the little Indian maiden had learned many things: to speak fluently the language of her husband's people, to wear in public the clothes of his countrywomen, and to use the manners of those of high estate. She had always been accustomed to the deference paid her as the daughter of the great werowance, ruler over thirty tribes, and now she received that of the English, who treated her as the daughter of a powerful ally. For Powhatan had seen the wisdom of keeping peace between Werowocomoco and Jamestown and its settlement up the river of Henrici, of which Rolfe's estate, Varina, was a portion.
Indeed, so stately was the manner of the Lady Rebecca that it was with difficulty that many could recall the wide-eyed maiden who used to come and go at Jamestown.
Now as she ascended the hill her eyes rested upon the home Rolfe had built for her. It was to the eyes of Englishmen, accustomed to the spacious manor houses of their own country, little more than a cabin. But to one who had seen nothing finer than the lodges of her father's towns, it was a very grand structure indeed, with its solid framework of oak, its four rooms, its chimney of brick and its furnishings sent over from London. Her husband had promised her that they should bring back many other wonderful arrangements when they returned from England.
She was a little warm from her climb and was looking forward to the moment when she could discard her clothes for her loose buckskin robe and moccasins. Rolfe, though he did not forbid them altogether, was not pleased at the sight of them; and Pocahontas this day was conscious of a slight feeling of relief that there were to be several days of his absence in which she could forget to be an Englishwoman.
She might forget for a while but only for a while for she was a happy and dutiful wife; but she could never forget that she was a mother, that her wonderful little Thomas, not so white as his father, nor so dark as herself, was waiting for her at the house. She hurried on, thinking of the fun she would have with him: how she would take him down to a stream and let him lie naked on the warm rocks, and how she would sing Indian songs to him and tell him stories of the beasts in the woods, even if he were too little to understand them.
She had left him in his cradle where, protected by its high sides, he was safe for hours at a time, and the workmen who were helping her husband start a tobacco plantation at Varina looked in often to see if he were all right.
She entered the house and hurrying to the cradle, called out:
"Little Rabbit, here I am."
But when she bent over the side, behold! the cradle was empty.
She looked in every room, but found no sign of him. Then she rushed to the door and called. Three of the men came running, and they told her, speaking one on top of the other, how half an hour after she and their master had left one of them had gone to look at the child and found the cradle empty. Since then they had been searching the place over, but with no success.
It was quite impossible for the child to have got away alone; yet who would take him away? Indians or white folk, there was none in all Virginia who would dare injure the grandchild of Powhatan.
When she had listened to what they had to say, Pocahontas bade them go and continue their search. When she was alone she sat down, not on the carven chair a carpenter had made her in Jamestown, but on the floor, as she had so often sat about the lodge fire when she wished to think hard.
After a long period of absolute silence and motionlessness she rose, took off her hat, gown and shoes and clothed herself in her Indian garments. Now she knelt by the cradle and examined the floor carefully, then the sill of the door and the ground in front of it. Something she must have discovered, for she sniffed the air eagerly like a hound that had found the scent. She weighed her decision a moment—should she turn in the direction of Powhata, where she knew Powhatan was staying, or should it be in the direction of Werowocomoco? She turned towards the latter, and stooping every few minutes to examine the ground, proceeded quickly on her quest.
It was the slightest imprint here and there on the earth of a moccasined foot which was the clue. Her brothers and sisters came to see her occasionally; but what purpose could one of them have in stealing her child? No hostile Indians any longer, thanks to the fear Powhatan's might and the English guns had spread among them, were ever seen in this part of the country; so while she hurried on she wondered whence this Indian kidnapper could have come. That it was an Indian she was certain, and that he bore the child she knew, because lying on a rock in the trail she had found a piece of the chain of chinquapins she had amused herself stringing together to place about little Thomas's neck.
Now that she was on the right trail it did not enter her mind to return to her husband's men for help or to send a messenger to Jamestown to fetch him back. She knew well that she was far better fitted than any white man to follow swiftly and surely the way her child had gone. It might be, since the thief had several hours' advantage, that it would be days before she could catch up with him; but if it took years and she had to journey to the end of the world she would not falter nor turn back for help.
As she travelled through the forest in the quick step that was almost a trot, the polish of her English life fell away from her as the leaves fell from the trees above her. She forgot the happenings of the two years since she had been the "Lady Rebecca," forgot her husband; and her baby was no longer the heir of the Rolfes about to be taken across the sea to be shown to his kinsmen; he was her papoose, and as she ran she called out to him all the pet names the Indian mothers loved. When she thought that he might be crying with terror or hunger she began to pray, prayers that came from the depth of her heart that she might reach him before he really suffered. But these prayers were not to the God of the Christians, but to the Okee her fathers had worshipped.
Many times the trail was almost invisible. There was little passing of feet this way and in no place was there anything like a path. But Pocahontas's eyes, keener than even in the days when they had rivalled her brother's in following in play the trail the pursued did his best to cover up, were never long at fault. The ground, the bushes from which raindrops had been shaken, a broken twig—all helped her read the way she was to go. If she could only tell whether she were gaining!
What she would do when she came face to face with the thief she did not know. If he were a strong man who defied her command to give up the grandson of Powhatan, how should she compel him? She had started off so hastily that she had not armed herself with any weapon. But she did not doubt that in some way or other she would wrest her child from him.
The sun was sinking; its beams, she saw, struck now the lower part of the tree trunks. Seeing this, she quickened her step; once the night fell she would have to lie down and wait for morning for fear of missing the trail.
It was almost dark when she reached a sort of open space the size of three lodges width, where doubtless the coming of many wild beasts to drink of a spring that bubbled up in the centre had worn down the growth of young trees. On one side of the ground where moss and creeping crowfoot grew, there were overhanging rocks which formed a small cave not much deeper than a man's height.
No longer could she see a footprint in the dusk, so Pocahontas sadly prepared to spend the night in this shelter. She leaned down and drank long from the spring, and taking off her moccasins, bathed her tired feet in it. Then because she wanted a fire more for its companionship than for the warmth, she gathered twigs, and twirling one in a bit of rotten wood, soon produced a spark that lighted a cheerful blaze.
There was nothing to be gained by staying awake. There was no one from whom she had anything to fear except possibly the thief, and the sooner they met the better pleased she would be. She was drowsy from the warmth of the fire and tired from the long pursuit, so Pocahontas lay down at the entrance of the cave, half within and half without, and in a moment was fast asleep.
Several times during the night she was half awakened by the sound of some young animal crying—perhaps a bear cub, she thought sleepily, but even were the mother bear nearby she had no fear of her.
Later on she dreamed that the mother bear had come into the cave and was sniffing her all over. She opened her eyes and saw the glow from the embers reflected in a pair of eyes above her.
"Go away, old Furry One!" she commanded drowsily. "I'm not afraid of thee. Be off and let me sleep."
But the sound of her own voice wakened her and she raised herself to a sitting position to see whether the bear were obeying her. Against the almost extinguished embers she saw the dim outlines—not of the beast she expected, but of a human being! She sprang up, seized hold of it with her right hand before the other had time to escape, and with her left hand caught up some dried twigs and threw them on the remains of the fire. The wood already heated, ignited at once; the blaze lighted up the little forest room and Pocahontas beheld—Wansutis!
"Where is my child?" cried Pocahontas. "What hast thou done with him? And so it was thou who alone in all the world didst dare steal him from me. What hast thou done with my son? Speak!"
The old woman did not struggle under the firm grasp of the young strong hands. She stood still as if alone, staring into the flames that reddened the circle of trees as if they had been stained with blood.
"What hast thou done with my son?" cried Pocahontas again.
"What hast thou done with my son?" asked the old woman, without turning her head to look at Pocahontas.
"Thy son! Claw-of-the-Eagle? Why! I sent thee word many moons ago, Wansutis, that he was dead."
"Hadst thou loved him he had not died."
"I loved him as a sister, Wansutis; my fate lay not in my hands. But Claw-of-the-Eagle is dead, and we mourn him, thou and I"—here she loosened her grasp on the old woman's shoulder, "but my son is alive unless—"
Here a dreadful possibility made her shake like an aspen.
"What hast thou done with my son, Wansutis? What didst thou want with him?"
Wansutis, who was now crouched down looking at the heart of the fire, began to chant as if alone:
"Wansutis's son died in battle. No stronger, fiercer brave was there in all the thirty tribes, and Wansutis's lodge was empty and there was none to hunt for her, to slay deer that she might feed upon fresh meat. Then Wansutis saw a prisoner with strong body, though it was yet small, and Wansutis had a new son, a swift hunter, whose face was ruddy by the firelight, whose presence in her lodge made Wansutis's slumbers quiet. And this son wanted a maiden for his squaw and went forth to play upon his pipes before her. But the maiden would not listen and the river and the maiden killed the brave son of Wansutis, and again her lodge was lonely."
She ceased for a moment, then as if she were reading the words in the flames, she sang more slowly:
"I am old, saith old Wansutis, yet I'll live for many harvests. I will seek another son now; I will bring him to my wigwam. He shall watch me and protect me; he will cheer me in the winters."
Pocahontas interrupted her:
"That then is the reason thou didst steal my child. Thou shalt not keep him; he is not for thy lodge. He goeth with his father and with me to be brought up in the houses of the English."
There came a cry from the forest, the same cry she had heard in her dreams. Without an instant's doubt, Pocahontas sprang into the blackness and in a few moments came back with the baby in her arms. She squatted down by the fire, and felt it over feverishly until she had convinced herself that it was unharmed.
Wansutis now rose.
"Farewell, Princess," she said. "Wansutis will now be returning to her lodge."
Now that she had her child safe again, Pocahontas's kind heart began to speak:
"Wansutis, thou knowest I cannot let thee have my son; but if thou wilt I will pray my father to give thee the next young brave he captures that thou mayst no longer be lonely."
"I will seek no more sons," answered the old woman; "perchance he might set off for a far land and leave me even as thy father's daughter leaveth him."
"But I will return to him," protested Pocahontas.
"Dost thou know that?" the old woman asked, leaning down and peering directly into Pocahontas's face. Her gaze was so full of hatred that Pocahontas drew back in terror.
"I see a ship"—Wansutis began to chant again—"a ship that sails for many days towards the rising sun; but I never see a ship that sails to the sunset. I see a deer from the free forests and it is fettered and its neck is hung with wampum and flowers; but the deer seeks in vain to escape to its bed of ferns in the woodland. I see a bird that is caught where the lodges are closer together than the pebbles on the seashore; but I never see the bird fly free above their lodge tops. I hear the crying of an orphan child; but the mother lieth where she cannot still it."
Pocahontas gazed in horrible fascination at the old woman who, with another harsh laugh, vanished into the darkness.
