He smiled sadly. "Thine is a strange fancy," he said, "that thou shouldst love the savage."
"He is a man," I replied; "a true and noble soul, stripped of all the dross that eats and corrodes the pure metal from the heart of his brother, the white man, who calls himself his superior. He has not learned to forsake his friends when they have fallen into misfortune, or to crowd with fawning smile around the great and powerful. He has much of worth, Governor, that we, who laugh at his barbarous ways, might do well to imitate."
"Yes," he answered absently, his eyes fixed upon the distant horizon, "he has much of good in him.
"I was thinking of my little granddaughter, Virginia," he continued wistfully; "she will be three years old in August, a bright happy baby when I saw her last. Now she is just beginning to totter around and to lisp childish prattle—that is if the savages have not murdered her with all the rest of the colonists. Often at night, during the two weary years that I have been in England, endeavoring to get men and ships to sail back, have I awakened, dreaming she was being slain by the Indians, with her screams in my ears, her baby hands clutching my garments. Even now I fear to touch foot upon the island, afraid that they are gone. It is terrible, Sir Thomas—awful," and he shuddered, his face pale. "If I should find them alive and well when I arrive, I shall thank God upon my knees.
"But here is thy hatchet," he said, as the sailor appeared with it in his hands. "Only take care that thy friend does not brain us in our sleep," and he tried to smile at me.
"Have no fear," I answered, "I will vouch for him." And taking the weapon in my hand, I retraced my steps to where I had left Manteo.
He still sat alone where I had left him, for he would have naught to do with most of the men; only with White and myself, and one or two others, would he mingle at all, the others he treated with cold scorn and contempt. His head was upon his hands, as I approached him and seated myself opposite on the deck.
"Manteo, I can give thee naught that is as valuable as the little basket that thou didst carve for me, but here is something that my brother can use and remember me by," and I put the bright new hatchet into his hand.
He glanced up at me, a look of wonder upon his savage face, for Raleigh would never allow him to have any weapons, fearing that he would become enraged at some fancied insult, and would kill his tormentor.
"Is it for me?" he asked.