The Argosy, April 1912 — page 63: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AS THE DICE FELL. Soldierlike, I took in my position. Just back of me was a sharp angle in the hewn logs. Here a strong man might well hold his own for a moment or so against attack. And I noticed the spot. - My straying eyes suddenly fell upon a face that appeared through an opening in the small, curtained doorway behind the dais. And I recognized it at a glance as the face of the “ Princess of America.” Unobserved by the rest, she stood there, behind the curtain, her eyes upon mine. I was about to rise and bow, when a forbid- ding glint in her big, dark eyes checked me. So, too unostentatiously to attract the notice of the feasting Indians, I continued to gaze at her. And I began to see she was making with her eyes some sort of signal to me. Her glance would rest first on my face, then shift commandingly to a spot a yard or two to one side. There was a horror of appeal in the look. And presently‘ I understood it. For some occult reason the princess wanted me to leave my seat and to move to that spot indicated by her gaze. Moreover, she was terribly eager that I make the move with- out delay. Not waiting for further proof of her wishes, and affected by that look of an- guished pleading, I leaped to my feet and at a single step I was in the spot to which her eyes had assigned me. As I stepped back there was a crash overhead. Through the thatched roof a monstrous boulder tore its way. Down it crashed—a ton or so of weight— so close to mé that I could feel the wind of its passing. It struck the block where I had just been sitting. And it smashed the stout slab of wood into splinters, driving the fragments and a part of its own mighty bulk deep into the hard-packed earth of the floor. Had I held my former place a half-sec- ond longer, I must have been crushed not only to death, but out of all semblance to a man. Truly, that look of agony in the princess’s wondrous eyes had not been without cause. My sword flashed out. My back was clapped to the angle of the wall, where none could assail me from behind. The heat of battle flamed up in my heart. Also a rage at this smooth-spoken savage king’s treach- ery, and this sin against the sacred guest law of the wilderness. 4A 49 Had Powhatan ordered us slain as we neared his village, or had he sent orders to our escort to fall upon us and kill us in our sleep during the march it would have been quite another matter. But he had greeted us with the “peace sign” (the palm held upward and outward in front of the brow) when we drew near. He had hailed us as brothers. He had promised us friendship and had broken bread with us. And now he had sought to murder me by treachery. Even in that hurried moment, I under- stood his motive. While he knew we were not ‘gods, yet he did realize that the white men possessed many “magic” arts un- known to him. And he feared lest some of these same inventions might save us, and perhaps harm him, were we put on our guard. Ever since the days of Jael and Sisera, the most approved fashion of throwing an enemy off his guard has been to feed him. The whole plot was quite clear. At my sudden leap backward from the -feasting board and the almost simultaneous crashing down of the vast stone through the roof thatch, the whole room was in an up- roar. clubs in hand. I stood, sword raised, ready to cut down or transfix the first foe who should be daring enough to venture within reach. Smith had sprung up and had whipped out his great sword with one hand, while with the other he had drawn his hunting- knife. Nor did he wait to be attacked. At a bound he was confronting Powhatan, his sword - point at the king’s throat. his arm drawn back for a thrust. “At the first blow—at the first move,” he yelled to the buzzing roomful, “TI shall drive my sword-blade through your vile king. Now, who strikes first?” There was a pause of consternation, of irresolute bewilderment. It was Powhatan who spoke. Unruffled in his regal calm, and no more heeding the deadly steel at his throat than if it had been a summer fly, the monarch said in cold rebuke: “Ts this the ‘ friendship ’ the white man- itous come so far to proffer? Do you call me brother, and eat of my food and then spring at me like an angry wildcat because one of the roof-stones has rolled from its place?” Smith’s hot anger seemed to merge ever cComicloool As by magic a ring of fierce-eyed savages pressed: about me, hatchets or war-. CO