The chief gazed at the bold youth with astonishment. “Does she remain willingly with them, or do they keep her as a prisoner?” he asked.
“It is of her own free will that she remains,” answered Oliver.
The chief sighed; “It is true that her parents were palefaces,” he said, “but the heart of Oncagua yearns towards her, and he has ever regarded her as his child.”
“But our grandfather has no other descendants than us two, and his heart will be made glad when he hears that the daughter of his only child is alive,” replied Oliver; “it may be that Oncagua remembers the chief of the palefaces when they first settled at Roanoke, Massey White.”
“He was my friend, my brother,” answered the old chief; “it was for his sake, in return for the kindness he did me, that I saved his grandchild, and would have saved her mother had I possessed the means of carrying her off. Though I shall grieve to lose the maiden, yet willingly will I send her to him to cheer his declining years. Bring her to me; she need not fear that I will detain her; but I will gaze at her once again before you take her away with you to your distant home. For her sake you and your companions may rest assured that Oncagua will remain, as he has ever been, a friend to the palefaces.”
Highly satisfied with the result of his embassy, Oliver hastened back to the camp. After due consultation Vaughan and Roger agreed to allow Virginia, if she was so minded, to accompany Oliver to the chief; should they not do so, it might show want of confidence, and Oliver declared that he would die fighting for her sooner than allow her to be carried off. She at first hesitated, but when Oliver told her what the chief had said, she consented to accompany him. Holding each other fast by the hand they set out, no one even addressing them till they reached the chief’s wigwam. Oncagua stood at the entrance waiting for them; he gazed with a fond look at the young girl for some minutes without speaking.
“Do you leave me willingly?” he asked at length, in a tone of grief. She burst into tears. “Had I not found my white brother, I would have remained with you, and tended you in sickness and old age,” she said, “but now I desire to go where he goes, and to dwell with those of my own colour.”
“Go, my child, go, the Great Spirit will have it so—and when you are far away, Oncagua will dream that you are happy with those of your own kindred and race.” As he spoke, he entered his wigwam; quickly returning with a small package carefully done up in opossum skin. “Take this with you,” he said, “it contains the clothes you wore and the chain you bore round your neck as an infant; it will prove to your grandfather that you are indeed his daughter’s child.” Taking the maiden in his arms, he pressed her to his heart, and then placing her hand in that of Oliver, told him to hasten back to his friends, as if he doubted his own resolution to give her up. The rest of the people, who had collected from all sides, gazed on the paleface maiden and her brother, with glances of admiration and awe, regarding them as beings of a superior nature to themselves.
Vaughan and Roger were on the watch to welcome them back; they both felt that they could not sufficiently thank the young maiden for the service she had done them, and they wished to express to Oliver their sense of his courage and boldness.
“I have done nothing that I should be thanked,” said Virginia, for by her rightful name they now called her; “I heard that you were in search of a white man, and knowing where one was to be found, I took my brother to him.”