“The pale face shall die; Powhatan has spoken.”
Bending her body, she clasped the head of Captain Smith to her beating bosom and faced her father. Then the soul of Virginia Dare battled with Powhatan for the life of the captive.
“Powhatan takes the life of the stranger; he shall also slay his best-loved daughter. Pocahontas has spoken.”
With a passionate movement she laid her face against that of the prisoner, and her cloud of hair covered them both with its dusky mantle.
For three long minutes a deathlike silence hung over the crowded room. Only the falling of a crackling branch sawn asunder by the fiery tooth of the flame disturbed the pulsating air. Powhatan moved on his throne and the spell was broken.
“Pocahontas has saved the pale face from death. He shall be kept a prisoner to make hatchets for Powhatan and beads for Pocahontas.”
Captain Smith was then removed to a lonely house in the woods, under a guard of four warriors.
Each day Pocahontas came with food for the young soldier, and as he ate he told her many stories of the lands across the sea.
“To the eastward lies the land of the pale faces. There they live in great houses, tall as trees. Many openings for the sunlight to come in are filled with a substance clear as water, but hard and brittle. The walls are hung in great pieces of cloth to keep out the winter’s cold. When the warriors go a-journey they ride upon a four-legged animal called a horse. Also the squaws and maidens cover their whole bodies.”
“Here and here?” said Pocahontas, touching her bared breast and arms.