“Yes,” he replied, glancing at the smear of leaf mould upon his beaded moccasins. “Captain Percy's eyes are quick; he should have been an Indian. I went to the Paspaheghs to take them the piece of copper. I could tell Captain Percy a curious thing”—
“Well?” I demanded, as he paused.
“I went to the lodge of the werowance with the copper, and found him not there. The old men declared that he had gone to the weirs for fish,—he and ten of his braves. The old men lied. I had passed the weirs of the Paspaheghs, and no man was there. I sat and smoked before the lodge, and the maidens brought me chinquapin cakes and pohickory; for Nantauquas is a prince and a welcome guest to all save Opechancanough. The old men smoked, with their eyes upon the ground, each seeing only the days when he was even as Nantauquas. They never knew when a wife of the werowance, turned child by pride, unfolded a doeskin and showed Nantauquas a silver cup carved all over and set with colored stones.”
“Humph!”
“The cup was a heavy price to pay,” continued the Indian. “I do not know what great thing it bought.”
“Humph!” I said again. “Did you happen to meet Master Edward Sharpless in the forest?”
He shook his head. “The forest is wide, and there are many trails through it. Nantauquas looked for that of the werowance of the Paspaheghs, but found it not. He had no time to waste upon a white man.”
He gathered his otterskin mantle about him and prepared to depart. I rose and gave him my hand, for I thoroughly liked him, and in the past he had made me his debtor. “Tell Rolfe he will find me alone,” I said, “and take my thanks for your pains, Nantauquas. If ever we hunt together again, may I have the chance to serve you! I bear the scars of the wolf's teeth yet; you came in the nick of time, that day.”
The Indian smiled. “It was a fierce old wolf. I wish Captain Percy free with all my heart, and then we will hunt more wolves, he and I.”
When he was gone, and the gaoler and Diccon with him, I returned to the window. The runaway in the pillory was released, and went away homewards, staggering beside his master's stirrup. Passers-by grew more and more infrequent, and up the street came faint sounds of laughter and hurrahing,—the bear must be making good sport. I could see the half-moon, and the guns, and the flag that streamed in the wind, and on the river a sail or two, white in the sunlight as the gulls that swooped past. Beyond rose the bare masts of the George. The Santa Teresa rode no more forever in the James. The King's ship was gone home to the King without the freight he looked for. Three days, and the George would spread her white wings and go down the wide river, and I with her, and the King's ward, and the King's sometime favorite. I looked down the wind-ruffled stream, and saw the great bay into which it emptied, and beyond the bay the heaving ocean, dark and light, league on league, league on league; then green England, and London, and the Tower. The vision disturbed me less than once it would have done. Men that I knew and trusted were to be passengers on that ship, as well as one I knew and did not trust. And if, at the journey's end, I saw the Tower, I saw also his Grace of Buckingham. Where I hated he hated, and was now powerful enough to strike.