Though Nautauquas, returning an hour later from a peaceful mission to a confederated tribe, made scarcely more noise than the beaver, Pocahontas awoke and raised her head and loosening the needles from her hair, sprang up.
"Greetings, Matoaka!" called out her brother. "Thou wert as snugly hidden here as a deer."
"What news, my Brother?" she asked as he sat down and, taking off his moccasins, let his heated feet hang into the stream.
"Evil news it is," he answered gravely, "for the friends of the great Captain."
"What hath befallen my white Brother?" she cried out; "tell me speedily."
"He was sleeping in his boat, I heard, far off from their island. A big bag of the powder they put into their guns lay in the bottom of his canoe, and when by chance a spark from his pipe fell upon it it grew angry and began to spit and burned his flesh till it waked him, and in his agony, he sprang into the river to quench the blaze."
Pocahontas, who had not winced at the thought of the brained Dutchmen, shivered.
"Where is he now?" she asked. "I wish to go to him."
Nautauquas looked at her earnestly as if he would question her, but did not. "They say he is on his way to Jamestown and should reach there on the morrow."
As Pocahontas and Nautauquas returned at sunset to Werowocomoco, the girl stopped at Wansutis's lodge.