On the following day, therefore, a few hours carried our lads to where the river broadened into a bay dotted with islands. As their little craft was lifted on the first great swells that came rolling in from the open sea, Nahma uttered an exclamation and pointed eagerly.
"Look!" he cried. "What is it? Was ever such a thing seen in the world before?"
Tasquanto glanced in the direction indicated and laughed. Truly, the sight was remarkable, and one still rare to those waters; but he had already seen one so similar in the St. Lawrence that he could now speak with the authority of superior knowledge.
"It is the winged canoe of the white man," he said. "In it he comes up out of the great salt waters and after a little flies back again to his own place. Knew you not that his whiteness is caused by the washing of the waters in which he lives?"
"No," replied Nahma, doubtfully. "Nor did I know that any canoe could be so vast. It even has trees growing from it."
"Yes," admitted the other, to whom this phenomenon was also a puzzle. "But they be not trees that bear fruit, nor even leaves, though they have branches and vines. On them the canoe spreads its wings, which are white like the pinions of wembezee" (the swan).
"Let us go closer that we may see these things," said Nahma, to whom the appearance of that little English trading-ship was as wonderful as had been his first view of Quebec.
So they approached slowly and cautiously, feasting their eyes on the marvel as they went, and directing each other's attention to a myriad of details. Finally they were within hailing distance, and a man standing on the ship's towering poop-deck beckoned for them to come on board.
Tasquanto, who knew the etiquette of such occasions, held up a beaver-skin, as much as to say "Will you trade?"
For reply the white man displayed some trinkets that glittered in the sunlight, thereby intimating his willingness to transact business. At the same time he turned to one who stood close at hand and said,—