. . and the clearings we
had made and the houses we had built . . . the goodly Englishmen,
Kent and Thorpe and Yeardley, Maddison, Wynne, Hamor, the
men who had striven to win and hold this land so fatal and so fair,
West and Rolfe and Jeremy Sparrow . . . the children about the
doorsteps, the women . . . one woman . . .
It came to an end, as all things earthly will. The flames of the great
bonfire sank lower and lower, and as they sank the gray light
faltered into being, grew, and strengthened. At last the dancers
were still, the women scattered, the priests with their hideous Okee
gone. The wailing of the pipes died away, the drums ceased to
beat, and the village lay in the keen wind and the pale light, inert
and quiet with the stillness of exhaustion.
The pause and hush did not last. When the ruffled pools amid the
marshes were rosy beneath the sunrise, the women brought us
food, and the warriors and old men gathered about us. They sat
upon mats or billets of wood, and I offered them bread and meat,
and told them they must come to Jamestown to taste of the white
man's cookery.
Scarcely was the meal over when Opechancanough issued from his
lodge, with his picked men behind him, and, coming slowly up to
us, took his seat upon the white mat that was spread for him. For a
few minutes he sat in a silence that neither we nor his people cared
to break.
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