CHAPTER XV.

It was nearly the middle hour, when the darkness is thickest, that a low voice said, at the entrance of the wigwam, “Will Owaissa come? Be quick, and move like a young fawn, without noise!”

It was a very low call for Iosco to hear, but it reached him. In a moment he stood before the wigwam by Nantiquas, who only said, “We shall carry Owaissa, and Iosco must go with her. Will he go?”

The reply was prompt:—

“He will go anywhere that Owaissa will be safe; but where will that be?”

“Ask nothing now. Can you carry her?”

Iosco lifted Owaissa tenderly, as if she had been a baby, and the three passed into the darkness and silence of the forest night.Nantiquas led them first behind the wigwam, where there were bushes and undergrowth to hide them. Then he turned into a trail unknown to Iosco. On, on, they went. Not a word was said. Owaissa felt that Iosco was carrying her, and she cared for nothing else. Iosco knew that he had his darling close to his heart, and that she had refused life at the price of being the wife of the bravest prince of the mightiest tribe.

Suddenly Nantiquas stopped, and said:—

“Ramapo stands yonder by the fallen willow; he loves Owaissa, and will let her pass. Iosco shall say he carries Owaissa to the great Werowance Eyonols on the Chanock flu. Say that she goes to hide at Ritanoe, in the mines of Mattasin. We meet beyond.”

Iosco went on as Nantiquas said, and met Ramapo, who let him pass. But no sooner had he done it than his loyal heart repented, and he called to Iosco to return. But Iosco only ran on the more quickly. He was wondering what he should do to protect Owaissa, when he heard Nantiquas say, “Turn under the lindens to the right, quickly!” And he turned just in time to escape an arrow that Ramapo had sent after him.Nantiquas led on in a different direction. The trail was very narrow and rough. Yet Iosco wished they might go on all night, that he might hold his prize so close.

After walking for several hours, Nantiquas stopped suddenly, and turned, saying, “The river lies just beyond. By it there is a camp, which fears not being seen, for the fire burns. The clever Powhatan has not had time to have his fire burning as bright as a harvest sun, since we started. If they are his men we shall be taken. First, Nantiquas would speak to Owaissa. He did journey to the pale-faces’ camp, and lie watching and listening, but no word that Owaissa spoke came to his ears. He did see one like a spirit, so white was his face. He lays his hands together, and puts his knees on the ground, looks up and speaks, and while he does, Nantiquas seizes and carries him off in the woods. He has not the strength of a kid, but his eyes are like those of a young deer, so brown and soft. Nantiquas says to the pale-face, ‘Virginia.’ He nods his head and laughs, as if he knows what that is. Then Nantiquas says, ‘White,’ and he puts his hands to his face and laughs more. Nantiquas says, ‘Dare,’ and he puts one hand on the other, and looks up as if he would say he feared the Indian not. He would understand no more. So Nantiquas leaves him to go back to his camp. While Nantiquas listened to the white camp men, he heard many speak to one, the chief. But they do not say ‘White,’ they say ‘New-port.’ One other is ‘Smi-th,’ and many more such. But none with the words of Owaissa.”

Owaissa stood by Nantiquas while he spoke. She laid her hand on his arm as she said, “Then they have forgotten me, my own people. But you, Nantiquas, you have been so kind, so very good to me. I shall always love you as I would have loved my brother. I will pray for you always.”

“Is it the prayer that makes Owaissa so brave?” he asked very gently.

“Yes, Nantiquas,” she replied. “It is the Great Spirit who makes us able to meet death. Some day you will know all about him. I am sure you will.”

Nantiquas took Virginia’s little hand and pressed it one moment. Then they stepped forward cautiously toward the river and the light. So softly did they move, they would surely not have been heard or discovered but for Virginia, who, as she came nearer the fire, gave a great cry, and sprang forward. Two figures were lying by the fire on the ground, and one was a white man.

It was an English voice that replied to Virginia’s cry, “Who comes this way?”

Virginia had sprung from her two companions, and was standing in the firelight before they could stop her. She spoke in her own tongue. They could not tell what she said, but they saw the two figures, who seemed to be alone by the camp fire, draw close to her.

“Ranteo!” exclaimed Iosco. “It is old Ranteo!” and he went forward.

When the old Indian saw Iosco, he caught his hand, crying, “The people of Manteo do groan for Iosco. They offer sacrifices every day for his return. But he comes not. Old Ranteo comes far to find him and fetch him back. The brave Christian Werowance, Iosco!”

It was Owaissa who answered, turning from the stranger with whom she had been earnestly talking, “Do they really want Iosco back at Croatoan? I knew they would, some day. I am so glad, dear Iosco.”

Nantiquas and the stranger to whom Virginia had been speaking looked at each other in surprise for a moment, then they began talking by signs. Nantiquas turned to the others, and laughed as he said, “The poor pale-face could not get to his camp. He was but an arrow’s fling from it.”

Ranteo laughed too, as he answered, “The poor nemarough wandered like a lost deer back and forth, and was full of fear. He would speak with me, but he could not, and for the great Werowance Manteo’s love, who did good to all such, Ranteo gave the stranger half his fire and half his food, and would bring him to Iosco.”

Nantiquas interrupted, “The Owaissa is not safe on Powhatan’s land. The boys and men wait yonder. You must go on. You must go to Croatoan. Is it not so, Iosco?”

“But how about the Werowance at Ritanoe? Must we not go there, Nantiquas?” Virginia asked.

Nantiquas laughed. “Owaissa would not have come by this trail had she been journeying to Ritanoe. Powhatan’s braves have that trail to-night. Owaissa was on her way to her own people, to the camp of the pale-faces, but it is safer for her on the way to Croatoan. There she can join her people without danger from Powhatan.”

A slight noise in the darkness startled them. Iosco drew a deerskin over the fire and stepped on it till the light was gone. Nantiquas led the way, and they followed; they had gone only a short distance when they came to the men and boys, all that was left of the Roanoke colony, seven souls. Two small skiffs were waiting, a moment more and all was ready.

Owaissa clasped Nantiquas’s hand. “You have been very good, dear Nantiquas. You will come to us some day, won’t you?” Her voice faltered, and she sobbed as she had not done in all the scenes of pain or danger. “He has been so good; he has saved us all,” she said, turning to the Englishman, who, raising his hand, gave his blessing to the young Indian prince.

One more grasp of Owaissa’s hand, then the skiffs were moving down the Youghianund flu, leaving Nantiquas alone on the shore. The first rays of the sun glistened on the waving hair in the boat, and on a little silky curl in the Indian’s brown hand, as he caressed it tenderly. The mists cleared away, and a faint gleam of color tinged the sky like the reflection of a rainbow. He saw it, and muttered to himself, as the skiffs passed out of sight, “Nantiquas will never tell your secret to the whites, Iosco, lest they carry her off from you.” And then looking towards the bright bow of color, he added, “True, there are many flowers do die on earth.”

Powhatan had condemned all the whites to die because he was afraid they might tell the secrets of his people to the white tribe who had now settled near his own lands. If they knew all, they would be dangerous enemies. So Nantiquas had sent word to Iosco not to let any of the whites attempt to go to Jamestown, for there were spies watching for them all the way, with orders to capture them. A reward was offered for every white scalp from Croatoan or Ritanoe, or wherever the seven whites had escaped to.

The old places were slowly coming nearer and nearer, and the great throb of happiness that leaps into one’s heart as he is coming home, filled Virginia’s heart with thankfulness and love.

“O Iosco, I am so glad I did not go right to my own people; I would never have seen Croatoan again. I am sure there is not another place in the whole world so beautiful. I love it, every spot of its ground. Are you glad we are all to be together again for a while?”

“Iosco is glad, oh, yes, very glad. Did Owaissa’s father come in the big canoes? What tidings brings the white man of her people?” he asked very earnestly.

Virginia was standing in the end of the skiff, that she might catch the first glimpse of the dear familiar place. She put her hand on Iosco’s shoulder to steady herself, and looking sadly down into his dark eyes, she said, “O Iosco, do you know I have almost forgotten my people’s language: many things the white man says to me I cannot understand. But this I do know; he says my grandfather and my father came with the big canoes to find us, long, long ago, and they found only the empty place at Roanoke and the word ‘Croatoan;’ but when they would find Croatoan, the storm caught up their canoes and carried them away. Even now this Chief Newport is speaking for us, and will be glad when he knows what you have done, and will give you many things.”

“Will the pale-face take Owaissa to her people soon?” Iosco asked.

“Whenever you send some one with us. We could not go alone; but do not let us hurry. Let us see you back at the old place, and this white face can teach your people and all of us about the Great Spirit, the dear Jesus. Mistress Wilkins said this land needed such as he is to hallow it—a priest.” Virginia said the last word reverently.

“The pale-face is good. The light of the Great Spirit is in his eyes. He shall stay as long as he will, and teach the people as Manteo would have wished; and surely Owaissa will never hurry from the people who love her,” Iosco replied.

“Do you know, Iosco,” she said with a wistful look, “do you know I almost dread going to my people now. If I have forgotten even their language, which I once knew so well, how much less shall I know their ways and lives, which I have never learned; they will not understand me and my ways, they will laugh at me. Your people are really my people, for I know and love them.”

As Iosco sprang from the little boat, upon his own land, he thought he had never felt so happy before; and when he turned and helped the Englishman on the shore, giving him a welcome after the manner of his people, Virginia wondered if the coming back had brought such joy into his face; she had not seen the pain that the leaving of it must have caused.

The priest bared his head, and raising his hand blessed the land and the people; then the little company moved up the hill. There were the great fields of tobacco with their long leaves shining in the sunlight; and there were the fields of corn where the women must have lately been working, but now there was not a sign of woman or child. Virginia was anxious to see the people; and she hurried on before the others, and ran swiftly over the grass, which was dotted with daisies. She soon reached the council house, which was like a great arbor, and hearing voices she stopped and looked in.

It was, indeed, a weird, almost unearthly sight that met her gaze. In the centre a great fire burned; around it on the ground a circle was formed of grains of corn; outside of this a larger circle formed of meal. Six men, painted red and black, with white circles painted about their eyes, followed; another, painted like themselves, only a little more gaudily, wore on his head a sort of crescent made of weasel-skins stuffed with dried moss, the tails tied together at the top with a knot of bright feathers, while the skins fell about his face and neck; a great green snake was coiled around his throat, the tail flapping about on his back. The creature, who was in fact the chief medicine-man, was a frightful object, as he danced before the fire uttering unearthly yells. The people had assembled in the arbor, bringing with them offerings of every imaginable description for sacrifice.

The purpose of this worship was to entreat the Great Spirit to send Iosco back: they did not know how to offer the Christian sacrifice, yet they felt that their prayers must be accompanied by some proof of their earnestness; so they used the old form of heathen worship, the only thing they had known till Manteo went to England and came back a Christian; but even then there had been no one to teach them its blessed worship. From Manteo and Mrs. Dare they had only gained a glimmering of its first principles, which they, poor heathen people as they were, had eagerly grasped. The people inside were so intent on their worship that they did not notice Virginia, as she stood in the vine-covered doorway, or the others who soon joined her.

To Martin Atherton, the English priest, as he gazed in at the wild, weird scene, it seemed like the very entrance of hell, and that hideous figure, the chief medicine-man, looked not unlike the evil one himself, as he danced and yelled, followed closely by the others. Then all the people sent forth a groan, and the chief medicine-man threw many of the offerings the people had brought into the fire, which caused a great crackling and spluttering. The groans of the people rose dolefully, and the wild yell of the medicine-man completed the frightful scene.

When Iosco passed from the little group outside, and stood in the firelight before his people, they thought he had come out of the fire, and waited one moment to see if he would vanish into it again. As he did not, they pressed their hands to their hearts and yelled for joy, till the very rocks seemed to tremble.

At a sign from Iosco his people were silent. He spoke to them of his father, and of his Christian faith; of the whites, and how Powhatan had killed most of them; of the canoes now in the river; of how he had heard they had wanted him, and he had come. Now did they wish him to remain? With a great cry they called him their chief, while the medicine-men strewed corn before him, as a sign that all should be his, and poor old Adwa, the squaw who had nursed him, ran to the fire, and would have thrown herself in as a thank-offering had not Iosco caught her and pointed to Virginia, who still stood in the doorway. She ran to her, and held the head of soft wavy hair to her breast as tenderly as any mother would have done.

Martin Atherton looked on in amazement, at the squaws gathered about Virginia, and showed how tenderly they loved her. He could see that she loved them, and for each she seemed to have a few kind words. The children seemed to rain down, more than a dozen having gathered around her in a minute. As he watched her caress them lovingly, and saw her pick up one brown little boy, who was scarcely more than a papoose, and hold him close to her heart, he wondered if she could ever be happy in a conventional English life, and what the drawing-room would say and think of this forest maiden.