That afternoon, as I
rode home through the lengthening shadows, a hunter, red-brown
and naked, rose from behind a fallen tree that sprawled across my
path, and made offer to bring me my meat from the moon of corn
to the moon of stags in exchange for a gun. There was scant love
between the savages and myself, - it was answer enough when I
told him my name. I left the dark figure standing, still as a carved
stone, in the heavy shadow of the trees, and, spurring my horse
(sent me from home, the year before, by my cousin Percy), was
soon at my house, - a poor and rude one, but pleasantly set upon a
slope of green turf, and girt with maize and the broad leaves of the
tobacco. When I had had my supper, I called from their hut the two
Paspahegh lads bought by me from their tribe the Michaelmas
before, and soundly flogged them both, having in my mind a
saying of my ancient captain's, namely, "He who strikes first
oft-times strikes last."
Upon the afternoon of which I now speak, in the midsummer of
the year of grace 1621, as I sat upon my doorstep, my long pipe
between my teeth and my eyes upon the pallid stream below, my
thoughts were busy with these matters, - so busy that I did not see
a horse and rider emerge from the dimness of the forest into the
cleared space before my palisade, nor knew, until his voice came
up the bank, that my good friend, Master John Rolfe, was without
and would speak to me.
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