Before the night was over Pocahontas had started on her way to Jamestown.  She went alone, since somehow she did not wish to chatter with a companion.  The thunder storms had cooled the air and softened the earth.  It was still early in the morning when she reached the town, now grown to be a settlement of fifty houses.  On the wharf she saw men hurrying back and forth to the ship, fastened by stout hawsers to the posts, bearing bundles of bear and fox skins, such as she had seen them purchase from her people, and boxes and trunks up to the deck.  One of the latter looked to her strangely like one she had seen in Smith’s house, of Cordova leather with a richly wrought iron lock.  “Doubtless,” she thought, “he is sending it back filled with gifts for the king he speaks so much of.”

She hastened towards his house and before she reached it she saw that his bed had been carried outside the door and that he lay upon it, propped up by pillows.  She recognized, too, the doctor in the man who was just leaving him.  Now in her eagerness she ran the rest of the way and Smith, catching sight of her, waved his hand feebly.

“Alas! my Brother,” she cried as she took his hand in hers, and saw how thin it had grown, “alas! how hast thou harmed thyself?”

“Thou hast heard, Matoaka?” he answered, smiling bravely in spite of the pain, “and art come, as thou hast ever come to Jamestown, to bring aid and comfort.”

“I have herbs here for thy wound,” she replied, taking them out of her pouch.  “They will heal it speedily.  They are great medicine.”

How could he help believe in their power, she had asked herself on her way that morning.  What had Wansutis meant?

“I thank thee, little Sister,” he answered gently, “for thy loving thought and for the journey thou hast taken.  Before thou earnest my heart was low, for I said to myself:  how can I go without bidding farewell to Matoaka; yet how can I send a message that will bring her here in time?”

“Go!” she exclaimed.  “Where wilt thou go?”

“Home to England.  The chirurgeon who hath just left me hath decided only this morn that his skill is not great enough to save my wound, that I must return to the wise men in London to heal me.”

“Nay, nay,” cried Pocahontas; “thou must not go.  Our wise women and our shamans have secrets and wonders thou knowest not of.  I will send to them and thy wound shall soon be as clean as the palm of my hand.”

[Illustration:  “NAY, NAY,” CRIED POCAHONTAS, “THOU MUST NOT GO”]

“Would that it might be so, little Sister.  I have seen in truth strange cures among thy people; and were my ill a fever such as might come to them or the result of an arrow’s bite, I would gladly let thy shamans have their will with me.  But gunpowder is to them a thing unknown, nor would their remedies avail me aught.”

“Then thou wilt go?” she asked in a voice low with despair.