But she shook her head in unbelief of this last assertion.
Finding that his wounds were of too serious a nature for simple remedies, Smith determined to return home on Captain Argall’s ship, now lying at her moorings in the harbor.
Pocahontas was kneeling by his side when he told her of his coming departure. Locking her hands together, she bowed her head upon them and abandoned herself to grief.
“Do not grieve so, my child; your father will still love you. If I get well, doubtless I shall come back to you, or perhaps you may come across the sea to me. Then I can show you all the wonderful things I have told you of. Dry your tears, little one, they hurt me.”
Passing her hands across her eyes, she brushed away the tears.
“Pocahontas will do nothing to hurt her father. See, the smile has chased the tears away.”
When the day came for his departure a stretcher was prepared by his sorrowing friends and he was placed upon it.
“Let Pocahontas hold his head once more,” she pleaded, and the men let her have her desire. His friends took up the stretcher and the little procession moved toward the ship, Pocahontas holding the head of the sick man in her arms. She followed them into the cabin and knelt in her accustomed place by his side. Drawing her head down, he pressed a fatherly kiss upon her brow and bade her leave him.
Standing on the beach she watched the receding ship as long as it could be seen, and again did Eleanor Dare’s soul bid good-by to a loved one. In her granddaughter’s heart love had taken the form of hero worship. The lovely jacqueminot bud was just beginning to unfold under the kisses of the sun, when fate snatched the burning rays away.
Turning to her canoe, rocking idly on the water, she sprang in and sailed away, not to revisit Jamestown again for three long years.