Spring had come! The sap was rising in the veins of the trees and the blood of the Indian answered the call. It was time to be on the warpath.
Far away on the Powhatan River the king of the Powhatans and his warriors were stringing their bows, sharpening their arrows, and making their canoes ready for a raid upon Winginia at his summer home on Croatan.
“Twenty warriors to each canoe,” was the command of Powhatan.
At length all was ready. Swiftly the canoes glided down the Powhatan, out into the waters of the Chesapeake, and then, skirting down the coast, fell upon the Catawbas.
Fiercely and long the warfare raged. Finally the tribe of Powhatan gained the day, and carried off the Virginia Water Lily as a captive, over the dead body of Ensinore.
Many of Powhatan’s warriors were worsted in their encounter with the Catawbas, so they proceeded only as far as Roanoke Island, where they halted for rest.
The breezes were soft from the ocean, there were many deer in the forest, and Powhatan lingered there twelve months.
As he looked upon the Virginia Water Lily she was fairer than all the maidens of his tribe and a fit mate for the grave and stately Powhatan, then just in his manhood’s prime. But no entreaties or commands could win a smile from her, for the heart of the Water Lily lay in the grave of Ensinore.
As the twelfth moon rounded out its last quarter the Water Lily folded up her petals and sank to sleep, leaving to Powhatan a little daughter.