"
"Why does Opechancanough send us back to the settlements?" I
demanded. "Their faith in him needs no strengthening."
"It is his fancy. Every hunter and trader and learner of our tongues,
living in the villages or straying in the woods, has been sent back
to Jamestown or to his hundred with presents and with words that
are sweeter than honey. He has told the three who go with you the
hour in which you are to reach Jamestown; he would have you as
singing birds, telling lying tales to the Governor, with scarce the
smoking of a pipe between those words of peace and the war
whoop. But if those who go with you see reason to misdoubt you,
they will kill you in the forest."
His voice fell, and he stood in silence, straight as an arrow, against
the post, the firelight playing over his dark limbs and sternly quiet
face. Outside, the night wind, rising, began to howl through the
naked branches, and a louder burst of yells came to us from the
roisterers in the distance. The mat before the doorway shook, and a
slim brown hand, slipped between the wood and the woven grass,
beckoned to us.
"Why did you come?" demanded the Indian. "Long ago, when
there were none but dark men from the Chesapeake to the hunting
grounds beneath the sunset, we were happy. Why did you leave
your own land, in the strange black ships with sails like the
piled-up clouds of summer? Was it not a good land? Were not your
forests broad and green, your fields fruitful, your rivers deep and
filled with fish? And the towns I have heard of - were they not
fair? You are brave men: had you no enemies there, and no
warpaths? It was your home: a man should love the good earth
over which he hunts, upon which stands his village.
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