‘Don’t be afraid,’ John said and came towards the light.

She clapped her hand over her mouth at the sight of him but her eyes widened with terror. ‘Is it really you?’

‘I swear it,’ John said. ‘Just dressed as a Powhatan.’

‘Your poor, poor man,’ she said and took hold of his hand and drew him indoors. ‘Good God preserve us all from such a fate. How did you get away from them?’

‘I was not captured,’ John said. He nodded at Francis, who stood frozen in horror at the sight of him.

‘It is me,’ John repeated.

Francis nodded, gave a little bow in reply and restored a woodchopping axe to its place behind the door.

‘Sit down, sit down,’ Sarah begged him. ‘Your hair! and – dear God – they have even stained your skin to their colour!’

‘That’s bear grease,’ John said. ‘It keeps off insects in summer and keeps out the cold in winter.’

‘God preserve us! How did you get away?’ Then her constant terror of the savage men struck her and she shot a frightened look at the thin wooden door. ‘Are they after you?’

‘No, no,’ John reassured her. ‘They let me go freely.’

‘Are you hungry?’ The anxious glance she threw at the cookpot suggested that there was not much to be had, even if he was.

‘I have eaten,’ John said steadily. ‘But I brought you some meat. We killed an elk.’

‘Meat?’ She choked as the saliva rushed into her throat. ‘You have meat?’

John reached for the bundle strapped into the small of his back. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘It’s smoked; but you could seethe it in a little water.’

She fell upon it and tossed it into the cookpot as it stood by the hearthside. John, remembering his sickness from food heated and reheated in the same pot, winced a little. But she was already stirring in water from a pitcher, and greedily tasting. ‘Bertram, Bertram!’

The shoulder in the bed shrugged still higher, and then the man rolled over on his back and glared into the room.

‘We have meat!’ she said triumphantly. ‘Can you sit up while I spoon you some broth?’

‘Meat?’ Hobert’s voice was a rough croak.

‘Neighbour Tradescant has brought us some steaks from an elk,’ she said. ‘He has been living with the savages but has got away from them now, praise God.’

Hobert heaved himself up to one arm. His face was marked with pain. In the little room John could smell the flesh of his snow-rotted feet and the stench of unwashed blankets.

‘John Tradescant?’ he asked wonderingly. ‘Is that really you?’