Jamestown (The Keepers of the Ring) by Angela Hunt, Angela Elwell Hunt Read Free Book Online

he stayed for three years.
    The chameleon adapted again, and imitated this new group of monks as easily as he had the Spanish fathers in Seville. In time he became the protégé of Governor Don Luis de Velasco, who took a fatherly interest in the young Indian and gave the prince his own name: Don Luis.
    Upon hearing that his wishes and vow had been thwarted, King Philip appointed Menéndez conqueror of Florida in 1565, and ordered the authorities of New Spain to remand Don Luis to Menéndez. The Archbishop and governor reluctantly complied, and Don Luis was sent off with fatherly embraces from the governor and dire warnings from the archbishop. From New Spain, Don Luis traveled to San Mateo in Florida, then two friars were commanded to escort the Indian to his own territory.
    Captain Pedro de Coronas and thirty Spanish soldiers joined the two friars and sailed from Santa Elena for Don Luis’ homeland of the Chesapeake, but the ship missed the entrance to the bay and anchored far southward. A sudden storm forced the Portuguese pilot to consult the two friars as to their next course of action.
    Like traitors, the two priests abandoned their task and told the pilot to sail for Spain. From where he stood in the bowels of the ship, Don Luis instinctively knew that he had been betrayed. The afternoon sun, which should have been in his face, lay at his back. The friars had kept him from his home once again, and rage bubbled in his soul like a living thing.
    But he had learned patience from the Spanish monks, and he swallowed his grief and disguised his anger as the ship anchored at Cadiz. King Philip directed that Don Luis be placed with the Jesuits to help them prepare for their missionary work among the American savages, and he learned how to read, write, and speak not only Spanish, but Latin. During this time he also received the holy sacraments of the altar and confirmation in the Catholic faith.
    Once he realized how highly the Spanish regarded their missionary work, he knew he had found a way home. Cloaking his features in piety and concern, he approached his Jesuit mentors in the autumn of 1567 with a dream to convert his parents, relatives, and countrymen to the faith of Jesus Christ. “I wish to baptize and make them Christians as I am,” he said, piously folding his hands in an attitude of prayer. “I have heard that a party of friars is about to depart for Florida, and would ask that priests be sent to my country to assist me in the work of conversion.” Menéndez was so delighted and relieved by the missionary scheme that he offered to supply a ship to carry a party to the Chesapeake.
    Menéndez and Don Luis reached Havana in November 1568 and met with Father Juan Baptista de Segura. Over the objections of his brothers, Father Segura looked into the dead black of Don Luis’ eyes and offered to join the expedition as a guide and interpreter. After a delay of some months, the ship left Santa Elena and arrived in Don Luis’ homeland on the tenth day of September 1570, nine years after he had been carried away.
    Upon landing, Don Luis’s joy was immediately tempered. He remembered the region as fruitful and beautiful, but upon his return the land bore the marks of famine and disease. The natives they encountered on their inland trek seemed primitive, dirty, and sickly to Don Luis’ eyes. ‘Twas as if the entire realm had been cursed since his departure.
    When at last he returned home to his own tribe, the simple Indians behaved as if he had come back from the dead. His father had died in his absence, and his younger brother, Wahunsonacock, now ruled the tribe as werowance, the Powhatan .
    Don Luis stood in silence as Wahunsonacock knelt at his feet and offered to surrender authority to him. He declined the offer, mindful of the watchful eyes of the Spanish friars. He quickly stated that he had not returned to his father’s people out of a desire for earthly things, but to teach them the way to heaven that lay in