POCAHONTAS, whose frantic questions had to be hushed with the lie that Smith was no more, now shunned the colony, and her pent-up adoration became a resentment against his people. It was as if he had been adopted into her tribe as well as her heart. A red woman, when she has given her heart, does not take it back. Her moods were more dark than bright, although with the braves and girls her own age she smiled and danced once in a while, like sunlight that would out in darkest woods at noon. A lovely maiden cannot remain woebegone too long, and Powhatan's people, especially those eager for his favor, did their merriest to scatter her dark moods.
She was visiting in the house of Chief Japazaws when he made a deal with the English of which she was not aware. Captain Argall, whose ship was anchored nearby, had dangled a copper kettle so temptingly in front of Japazaws and his greedy squaw that they could not wait until it spewed steam on their hearth. Captain Argall wanted Pocahontas as a hostage to exchange for English prisoners whom Powhatan had detained too long. That would be easy, agreed Japazaws, for she used to like the English and was grieving even now for their John Smith. After some pouting, she would be happy as a lark sailing down the river with the English in their great canoe.
"I have never been on a ship in my life," the artful squaw begged her spouse. "Captain said he would show it to me."
"Go where you like," shrugged Japazaws.
"Why don't you?" added Pocahontas indifferently.
"Not by myself—the only woman! Besides, I do not know those palefaces. You used to know them right well, Pocahontas. Come along."
Pocahontas complied, but she appeared listless as she went over the ship while the squaw squealed with delight at everything she saw. At dinner Pocahontas did not notice that drunken Japazaws pressed gleefully on Argall's toes. "She's as good as yours."
Afterwards she was looking over the guns in the gun-room, and thinking how Powhatan would have coveted them, when she was told that the chief and his squaw had skipped off of the ship, guiltily swinging their kettle between them.
When she found herself a prisoner, she pulled such a long face, that the English gentlemen felt quite contrite, and every man of them henceforth did his best to cheer her, especially John Rolfe.