Ra-bun-ta was as good a gossip and story-teller as any of his tribesmen, and as he squatted before the upper fire-pit, and ate a hearty meal of parched corn, which the little Ma-ta-oka brought him as a peace-offering, he gave the details of the celebrated capture. “The ‘great captain,’” he said, “and two of his men had been surprised in the Chicka-hominy swamps by the chief O-pe-chan-ca-nough and two hundred braves. The two men were killed by the chief, but the ‘captain,’ seeing himself thus entrapped, seized his Indian guide and fastened him before as a shield, and thus sent out so much of his magic thunder from his fire-tube that he killed or wounded many of the Indians, and yet kept himself from harm though his clothes were torn with arrow-shots. At last, however,” said the runner, “the ‘captain’ had slipped into a mud-hole in the swamps, and, being there surrounded, was dragged out and made captive, and he, Ra-bun-ta, had been sent on to tell the great news to the chief.”
The Indians especially admired bravery and cunning. This device of the white chieftain and his valor when attacked appealed to their admiration, and there was great desire to see him when next day he was brought into the village by the chief of the Pa-mun-kee, or York River Indians, O-pe-chan-ca-nough, brother of the chief of the Pow-ha-tans.
The renowned prisoner was received with the customary chorus of Indian yells, and then, acting upon the one leading Indian custom, the law of unlimited hospitality, a bountiful feast was set before the captive, who, like the valiant man he was, ate heartily though ignorant what his fate might be.
The Indians seldom wantonly killed their captives. When a sufficient number had been sacrificed to avenge the memory of such braves as had fallen in fight, the remaining captives were either adopted as tribesmen or disposed of as slaves.
So valiant a warrior as this pale-faced cau-co-rouse was too important a personage to be used as a slave, and Wa-bun-so-na-cook, the chief, received him as an honored guest(1) rather than as a prisoner, kept him in his own house for two days, and adopting him as his own son, promised him a large gift of land. Then, with many expressions of friendship, he returned him, well escorted by Indian guides, to the trail that led back direct to the English colony at Jamestown.