"'Twas the beautiful one," Manteo had grunted, as he gazed at the trodden ground. With a sigh I had resumed the march; so near to her and yet so far. 'Twas like the will-o'-wisp; one moment thou couldst see the magic fire in front of thine eyes, but lo! when thou hadst reached it, it had flitted on ahead, to taunt thee to further pursuit.
And now on the fifteenth day of our departure from Roanoke Island we still followed after them. Manteo, who glided in front, was striding along, his eyes as usual upon the ground. I following him, was wondering for the one hundreth time whether it was possible that this could be Margaret, and if so how she came there, and who were her companions; Dunraven of course, and the pale one, as the Indian called Marsden. Who was the third white man? It might be DeNortier, and so musing I bumped suddenly into the Indian, who had halted, and almost threw him sprawling upon the ground.
"Hush!" he whispered, his finger upraised.
I stopped, as did the man behind me, and listened. Far away I could hear the deep regular strokes of an ax; plainly someone was chopping, but who in this wilderness??
"Wait here," muttered Manteo. "I will see who it is that cuts so loudly," and with that he glided silently away, across the little open glade in front of us, and into the trees upon the other side.
A few minutes passed, and then he came back again as silently as he had left.
"Come," he said, and he turned and retraced his steps whence he had come.
We followed him for perhaps ten minutes, and then emerging from the trees, we came full upon a strange Indian. Bow in hand, he sat quietly by the side of a charred tree, which he had been fashioning into a canoe with a stone tomahawk, after burning out the heart of the tree. He arose gravely as I approached, and stood looking at me, his fierce eyes scanning my face searchingly.
"This is the great white chief, the Eagle," said Manteo to the other brave. "Tell him what thou hast seen."
The Indian answered, speaking in what appeared to be a dialect of the same tongue that Manteo spoke, and though it differed in some respects, I could yet manage to understand what he said.