"Go!" she exclaimed. "Where wilt thou go?"
"Home to England. The chirurgeon who hath just left me hath decided only this morn that his skill is not great enough to save my wound, that I must return to the wise men in London to heal me."
"Nay, nay," cried Pocahontas; "thou must not go. Our wise women and our shamans have secrets and wonders thou knowest not of. I will send to them and thy wound shall soon be as clean as the palm of my hand."
"Would that it might be so, little Sister. I have seen in truth strange cures among thy people; and were my ill a fever such as might come to them or the result of an arrow's bite, I would gladly let thy shamans have their will with me. But gunpowder is to them a thing unknown, nor would their remedies avail me aught."
"Then thou wilt go?" she asked in a voice low with despair.
"Aye, Matoaka, I must or else take up my abode speedily yonder," and he pointed to the graveyard. "It is a bitter thing to go now and leave my work unfinished, to know that mine enemies will rejoice—"
"I shall die when thou art gone," she interrupted, kneeling down beside him; "thou hast become like a god to Matoaka, a god strong and wonderful."
"Little Sister! Little Sister!" he repeated as he stroked her hair. Once again there came to him the thought he had harbored before—that perhaps when this child was grown he might claim her as a wife. Now this would never come to pass.
She knelt there still in silence, then she asked, hope and eagerness in her voice: "Thou wilt come back to us?"