Wansutis now rose.
"Farewell, Princess," she said. "Wansutis will now be returning to her lodge."
Now that she had her child safe again, Pocahontas's kind heart began to speak:
"Wansutis, thou knowest I cannot let thee have my son; but if thou wilt I will pray my father to give thee the next young brave he captures that thou mayst no longer be lonely."
"I will seek no more sons," answered the old woman; "perchance he might set off for a far land and leave me even as thy father's daughter leaveth him."
"But I will return to him," protested Pocahontas.
"Dost thou know that?" the old woman asked, leaning down and peering directly into Pocahontas's face. Her gaze was so full of hatred that Pocahontas drew back in terror.
"I see a ship"—Wansutis began to chant again—"a ship that sails for many days towards the rising sun; but I never see a ship that sails to the sunset. I see a deer from the free forests and it is fettered and its neck is hung with wampum and flowers; but the deer seeks in vain to escape to its bed of ferns in the woodland. I see a bird that is caught where the lodges are closer together than the pebbles on the seashore; but I never see the bird fly free above their lodge tops. I hear the crying of an orphan child; but the mother lieth where she cannot still it."
Pocahontas gazed in horrible fascination at the old woman who, with another harsh laugh, vanished into the darkness.