He
calls me no more his brave, his brother Powhatan's dear son. I do
not sit by his council fire now, nor do I lead his war bands. When I
went last to his lodge and stood before him, his eyes burned me
like the coals the Monacans once closed my hands upon. He
would not speak to me."
"It would not fret me if he never spoke again," I said. "You have
been to the forest to-day?"
"Yes," he replied, glancing at the smear of leaf mould upon his
beaded moccasins. "Captain Percy's eyes are quick; he should have
been an Indian. I went to the Paspaheghs to take them the piece of
copper. I could tell Captain Percy a curious thing" -
"Well?" I demanded, as he paused.
"I went to the lodge of the werowance with the copper, and found
him not there. The old men declared that he had gone to the weirs
for fish, - he and ten of his braves. The old men lied. I had passed
the weirs of the Paspaheghs, and no man was there. I sat and
smoked before the lodge, and the maidens brought me chinquapin
cakes and pohickory; for Nantauquas is a prince and a welcome
guest to all save Opechancanough. The old men smoked, with their
eyes upon the ground, each seeing only the days when he was even
as Nantauquas. They never knew when a wife of the werowance,
turned child by pride, unfolded a doeskin and showed Nantauquas
a silver cup carved all over and set with colored stones.
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