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Show Page 249 come to pass with her and why she was the only prisoner set free. "The other prisoners were not returned," she replied, "because Chanco had overheard some threatening speeches made by a Mister Poole. It seemed he wished to use the treaty as a means to further subdue the Indians and take their crops." "I knew Poole spoke too freely," exclaimed Captain Pierce, smacking a fist into his palm. "Now we shall have to begin all over again to strike a bargain with the wily Opitchapan." "Was an Anne Jackson amongst those held prisoner?" I asked, remembering the woman from Martin's Hundred who had been marched away with the children. Mistress Boyse nodded, then named the others who were held captive, few of whom I knew. "It was passingly strange though," she said then, "that when we arrived at the Indian village there was already a white woman living amongst the natives. Yet she was not a prisoner. She had come there seemingly of her own will. I deemed her a haunted person who had come hither for reasons she did not wish to speak of. Dark she was, with a lean, hungry look about her." A memory, from days long ago and less strange than these, flitted about the fringes of my thoughts. "Rose Hawkings!" I cried, when the memory had formed a picture in my mind. After I explained how Rose had come to flee Martin's Hundred, Mistress Boyse gave a little shake of her head and a click of her tongue. "'Twould indeed seem to be this Rose," |