THE FLORIDA POCAHONTAS. 101 



Indian child that pointed him out to his comrade •at' play, little 

 heeding the wondering eyes of the Indian girls that followed his 

 steps ; for his thoughts were where the Alcanadre river was leap- 

 ing his native hills of Arragon, and the castanets clacked to the 

 dancer's tread under the walls of his home in Huesca. 



" But there were others at the village who did not join in the 

 verdict of the chiefs. Those simple hearts, whose love and faith 

 in the forest, or the town, all the wide world over, makes the sun- 

 shine to man's gloom, the hope to passion's rigour, had seen the 

 stranger, had sorrowed for him, and had longed to save him. First 

 among them all was the daughter of the chief. Availing herself 

 of her rank, she had stood without the ring when Ortez was under 

 examination. She had seen his melancholy attitude, and met the 

 fiery glance of his Spanish eye. She had marked his slashed 

 doublet, and the graceful embroideries of his vest. His heavy 

 moustache was different from the smooth-faced warriors of her 

 tribe, and his form, by their lithe figures, towered like King 

 Richard's at Askelon. Her uncovered bosom throbbed beneath 

 the necklace of coral, her deep eyes were vacant with thought. 

 Yahchilane was in love; and the object of her love was the 

 Spanish soldier that was to die at sunrise." 



" That 's not nateral at all ; an Injin woman is a leetle wuss 

 nor an Injin man, and is allers down on a prisoner." 



" You, Mike ! " said Louisa Jackson, with a hushing gesture of 

 her hand ; and the hunter relapsed into silence, and sat as before, 

 listening to the story, and rolling backward and forward, with his 

 arms clasped around his knee. 



" It was the old story of Pocahontas anticipated among a gentler 

 people, and Yahchilane did not need to throw herself under the 

 war-club to gain the prisoner's pardon. She came, when the moon 

 was up, to her father's house, and with her came one of the young 

 girls of the tribe, the friend of the chieftain's daughter. They 

 brought a roll of cloth, finely woven from the inner bark of trees ; 

 they brought tatooed gourds, filled with the precious stones that 

 Indians prize so well, and wampum belts of amber-coloured shells 

 they brought their gayest kirtles of the skins of the merganser and 

 wood-duck ; and the moccasin, deftly sewed with the porcupine's 



