"Why should I not do what a squaw doth?"
The Queen recovered her equanimity and in sign of her good will unfastened a golden brooch and pinned it on the Indian's broad shoulder. Then the chief broke off from his girdle a string of wampum, and before any one realized what he intended doing, he had fastened it to a pearl pin on the Queen's bodice.
"I see I cannot get the better of him. Lady Rebecca," laughed her Majesty; "but ask him what he doth with yon long stick."
The pages, whose interest in this savage overcame for the moment their habit of etiquette, had approached little by little towards the end of the hall where he stood. They watched eagerly and with a certain dread of the unknown while he took from his pouch a white stick and his knife from his girdle. The stick, they saw, was covered with tiny nicks; and the Indian, looking from one person to another, made many more marks on the wand.
"What is it thou dost, Uttamatomakkin?" asked Pocahontas.
"The werowance, thy father, told me to mark and let him know when I return how many white folk there were in this land. I made a cut for each one I counted at first, but my stick is all but covered now and the Powhatan will not know how the palefaces swarm here like bees in a hollow tree."
Pocahontas repeated to the Queen what he had said, and her Majesty was greatly amused.
"But thou dost not plan to return to Virginia for a long; time yet?" she asked.
"Much I like thy land, and its pleasant folk," answered Pocahontas as she rose to go. "But the time draweth near for us to set sail westward again. Farewell."
Then, accompanied by Lady De La Ware and Uttamatomakkin, she left the audience chamber.