Letters from Virginia caused Rolfe to feel some uneasiness regarding the affairs of his plantation. He must return home without delay. No more following of the hounds in the vast glades of Saint James’s Park, or in the spring, floating down to Greenwich through a cloud of swans. Pocahontas must sail for home to take up again plantation life at Varina, with its round of duties and simple pleasures.
Sailing down the Thames to Gravesend, she looked back with fond regret upon the scenes which imagination already began to paint in rose-colored hues.
When they arrived at Gravesend at the mouth of the Thames Rolfe noticed that Pocahontas looked weary and jaded. A hectic flush mantled her cheek and her hands were cold as ice.
“What ails my darling?” he inquired anxiously.
“Pocahontas’s head is heavy and her body is cold,” she languidly replied.
A doctor was hastily summoned. He bled her profusely, but all to no avail. She grew weaker every hour. Delirium set in. She was back in Virginia again, roving the forests, visiting Jamestown, strolling with Smith beside the river or sitting in her cabin playing with her baby boy.
On the third day she fell into a deep slumber, which was but the forerunner of the long sleep on which she was entering.
“Surely she will be better when she awakens,” said Rolfe to the physician. All day he had sat by her side holding her hand or bathing her brow.
“I dare not deceive you, Master Rolfe. She is sinking rapidly. She will awaken to consciousness but it will be but the flaring of the candle, now burnt low in the socket.”
Late in the afternoon she opened her eyes, and feeling for her husband’s hand, whispered, “John, where are you? It is so dark—the cold water is lapping on my feet.”