In the midst of a brilliant account of the nuptials of the Chevalier de Grammont came an interruption.
"De horses am fed an' brought roun', massa."
The Governor started up. "Rat me, if good sack and good stories make not a man forget all else beside! Colonel Verney, I wish you, as lieutenant of this shire, to ride with me to this Chickahominy village where I have promised an audience to the half king of the tribe. Plague on the unreasonable vermin! Why can they not give way peaceably? If the colony needs and takes their lands, it leaves them a plenty elsewhere. Let them fall back towards the South Sea. Sir Charles, I grieve for the necessity, but we must leave the court and come back to the wilderness. Gentlemen, will you ride with Verney and me, or shall we part now to meet at sunset in his orchard?"
"We had best ride with your Excellency," said Carrington gravely. "I like not the temper of the Chickahominies, who ever mean most when they say least. And these roving Ricahecrians, their guests, are of a strange and fierce aspect. It is as well to go in force."
"Those vagrants from the Blue Mountains have been here overlong," said the Governor. "I shall send them packing! Well, gentlemen, since we are to have the pleasure of your company, boot and saddle is the word!"
The sun had some time passed the meridian when the party saw through the widening glades of the forest the gleam of a great river, and upon its bank an Indian village of perhaps fifty wigwams, set in fields of maize and tobacco, groves of mulberries, and tangles of wild grape. The titanic laughter of Laramore and the drinking catch which Sir Charles trolled forth at the top of a high, sweet voice had announced their approach long before they pushed their horses into the open; and the population of the village was come forth to meet them with song and dance and in gala attire. The soft and musical voices of the young women raised a kind of recitative wherein was lauded to the skies the virtue, wisdom and power of the white father who had come from the banks of the Powhatan to those of the Pamunkey to visit his faithful Chickahominies, bringing (beyond doubt) justice in his hand. The deeper tones of the men chimed in, and the mob of naked children, bringing up the rear of the procession, added their shrill voices to the clamor, which, upon the booming in of a drum and the furious shaking of the conjurer's rattle, became deafening.