He had been silent. Then he spoke eagerly, “Owaissa cannot tell what Nantiquas saw when he watched the big sea-water from the great salt oak.”
“What did you see, Nantiquas? Please tell me,” Virginia asked, dropping her flowers with a strangely anxious expression, which made Nantiquas feel that she knew, or imagined, what he had to tell her.
He replied quite indifferently, “As the waves from Witch’s reef came to Nantiquas, there came with the waves a great canoe with wings. So close to Nantiquas it came, that the pale-faces shone as they put their irons in the sea. Even as they went down from the big canoe and dropped into a little one, the waves brought another big canoe, as one bird finding a carcass attracts many birds.”
As he finished speaking, the color rose to Virginia’s cheeks, then died away, leaving them deadly pale. Her hands were clasped. One moment she raised her eyes, her lips moved. Then she turned to the young Indian with a look that he never forgot, and said, “Nantiquas, in one of those must be my father; may I go and see them?”
“Owaissa could never walk so far. Nantiquas would take her, but the canoe is too small.”
Nantiquas felt sure if her father were among the pale-faces he had seen, he would surely come and take her away, and this thought was not pleasant to him. So he did not mean to help her. But a feeling of jealousy rose in his heart when Virginia said, “Iosco will help me, I must go and find him, and tell him; I know he will be glad.”
As she sprang up to go away, Nantiquas caught her hand. “Will Owaissa let Nantiquas go for her to the camp of the pale tribe and find her father?”
“Oh, how good you are!” she cried, her cheeks glowing, and her eyes sparkling. “But the white men will never know what you want. You cannot talk their language, and they may think you mean them harm.” Such a sad, disappointed look came into her face that Nantiquas, seeing it, would have risked death a hundred times for her.
He drew himself up proudly, as he answered, “The son of Powhatan is not a fawn. He will go. Owaissa will tell him the words, and he shall say them to the white chief in the chief’s own tongue.”
“Do you think you could?” she said, looking up wistfully into his face. “Could you say ‘White’?”