“Iosco is glad, oh, yes, very glad. Did Owaissa’s father come in the big canoes? What tidings brings the white man of her people?” he asked very earnestly.
Virginia was standing in the end of the skiff, that she might catch the first glimpse of the dear familiar place. She put her hand on Iosco’s shoulder to steady herself, and looking sadly down into his dark eyes, she said, “O Iosco, do you know I have almost forgotten my people’s language: many things the white man says to me I cannot understand. But this I do know; he says my grandfather and my father came with the big canoes to find us, long, long ago, and they found only the empty place at Roanoke and the word ‘Croatoan;’ but when they would find Croatoan, the storm caught up their canoes and carried them away. Even now this Chief Newport is speaking for us, and will be glad when he knows what you have done, and will give you many things.”
“Will the pale-face take Owaissa to her people soon?” Iosco asked.
“Whenever you send some one with us. We could not go alone; but do not let us hurry. Let us see you back at the old place, and this white face can teach your people and all of us about the Great Spirit, the dear Jesus. Mistress Wilkins said this land needed such as he is to hallow it—a priest.” Virginia said the last word reverently.
“The pale-face is good. The light of the Great Spirit is in his eyes. He shall stay as long as he will, and teach the people as Manteo would have wished; and surely Owaissa will never hurry from the people who love her,” Iosco replied.
“Do you know, Iosco,” she said with a wistful look, “do you know I almost dread going to my people now. If I have forgotten even their language, which I once knew so well, how much less shall I know their ways and lives, which I have never learned; they will not understand me and my ways, they will laugh at me. Your people are really my people, for I know and love them.”
As Iosco sprang from the little boat, upon his own land, he thought he had never felt so happy before; and when he turned and helped the Englishman on the shore, giving him a welcome after the manner of his people, Virginia wondered if the coming back had brought such joy into his face; she had not seen the pain that the leaving of it must have caused.
The priest bared his head, and raising his hand blessed the land and the people; then the little company moved up the hill. There were the great fields of tobacco with their long leaves shining in the sunlight; and there were the fields of corn where the women must have lately been working, but now there was not a sign of woman or child. Virginia was anxious to see the people; and she hurried on before the others, and ran swiftly over the grass, which was dotted with daisies. She soon reached the council house, which was like a great arbor, and hearing voices she stopped and looked in.
It was, indeed, a weird, almost unearthly sight that met her gaze. In the centre a great fire burned; around it on the ground a circle was formed of grains of corn; outside of this a larger circle formed of meal. Six men, painted red and black, with white circles painted about their eyes, followed; another, painted like themselves, only a little more gaudily, wore on his head a sort of crescent made of weasel-skins stuffed with dried moss, the tails tied together at the top with a knot of bright feathers, while the skins fell about his face and neck; a great green snake was coiled around his throat, the tail flapping about on his back. The creature, who was in fact the chief medicine-man, was a frightful object, as he danced before the fire uttering unearthly yells. The people had assembled in the arbor, bringing with them offerings of every imaginable description for sacrifice.
The purpose of this worship was to entreat the Great Spirit to send Iosco back: they did not know how to offer the Christian sacrifice, yet they felt that their prayers must be accompanied by some proof of their earnestness; so they used the old form of heathen worship, the only thing they had known till Manteo went to England and came back a Christian; but even then there had been no one to teach them its blessed worship. From Manteo and Mrs. Dare they had only gained a glimmering of its first principles, which they, poor heathen people as they were, had eagerly grasped. The people inside were so intent on their worship that they did not notice Virginia, as she stood in the vine-covered doorway, or the others who soon joined her.