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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59864 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SILVER ARROW
+
+BY ELBERT HUBBARD
+
+[Illustration: Logo]
+
+PRINTED BY THE ROYCROFTERS AT EAST AURORA, N.Y.
+
+
+Copyrighted 1923
+By The Roycrofters
+
+
+
+
+THE SILVER ARROW
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+And so it happened that Sir Walter Raleigh, the graceful, the gracious,
+the generous, had spread his cloak in the pathway of Queen Elizabeth
+and had been taken into her especial favor.
+
+The Queen was nineteen years older than Sir Walter; that is to say, she
+was in her fifties, and he was in his thirties.
+
+But Queen Bess hated old age, and swore a halibi for the swift passing
+years, and always delighted in the title of the "Virgin Queen."
+
+Sir Walter did one great thing for England, and one for Ireland. He
+taught the English the use of tobacco, and he discovered the "Irish
+potato"--which is native to America.
+
+They do say that Sir Walter and Queen Elizabeth enjoyed many a quiet
+smoke with their feet on the table--so as to equalize circulation. Both
+of them were big folk, with plans and ambitions plus. Sir Walter was
+contemporary with Shakespeare, and in fact looked like him, acted like
+him and had a good deal of the same agile, joyous, bubbling fertility
+of mind. That is, Sir Walter and William were lovers by nature; and
+love rightly exercised, and alternately encouraged and thwarted, gives
+the alternating current, and lo! we have that which the world calls
+genius. And I am told by those who know, that you can never get genius
+in any other way.
+
+Good Queen Bess--who was not so very good--fanned the ambitions of Sir
+Walter and flattered his abilities. And of course any man born in a
+lowly station, or high, would have been immensely complimented by the
+gentle love-taps, and sighs, vain or otherwise, not to mention the
+glimmering glances of the alleged Virgin Queen.
+
+But a good way to throttle love is to spy on it, question it, analyze
+it, vivisect it. And so Sir Walter's bubbling heart had chills of fear
+when he discovered that he was being followed wherever he went by the
+secret emissaries of Elizabeth.
+
+Had he been free to act he would have disposed of these spies, and
+quickly too; but he was in thrall to a Queen, and was paying for his
+political power by being deprived of his personality. Oho, and Oho!
+The law of compensation acted then as now, and nothing is ever given
+away; everything is bought with a price--even the favors of royalty.
+
+And behold! In the palace of the Queen, as janitor, gardener, scullion
+and all-around handy man was one John White, obscure, and yet elevated
+on account of his lack of wit.
+
+He was so stupid that he was amusing. Sayings bright and clever that
+courtiers flung off when the wine went around were imputed to John
+White. Thus he came to have a renown which was not his own; and Sir
+Walter Raleigh, with his cheery, generous ways, attributed many a quiet
+quip and quillet to John White which John White had never thought nor
+said.
+
+Now John White had a daughter, Eleanor by name, tall and fair and
+gracious, bearing in her veins the blood of Vikings bold; and her
+yellow hair blew in the breeze as did the yellow hair of those
+conquerors who discovered America and built the blockhouses along the
+coast of Rhode Island.
+
+Doubtless in his youth John White had a deal of sturdy worth, but a
+bump on the sconce at some Donnybrook Fair early in his young manhood
+had sent his wits a woolgathering.
+
+But the girl was not thus handicapped; her mind was alert and eager.
+
+The mother of Eleanor had passed away, and the girl had grown
+strong and able in spirit through carrying burdens and facing
+responsibilities. She knew the limitations of her father and she knew
+his worth; and she also knew that he was a sort of unofficial fool for
+the court, being duly installed through the clever and heedless tongue
+of Sir Walter Raleigh.
+
+Who would ever have thought that Sir Walter, the diplomat, the strong,
+the able, was to be brought low by this fair-haired daughter of John
+White, the court fool!
+
+"You are Sir Walter Raleigh," said this girl of nineteen one day to Sir
+Walter when they met squarely face to face in a hallway. It was a bold
+thing to do to stop this statesman, and she only a daughter to a court
+fool, and herself a worker below stairs!
+
+Sir Walter smiled, removed his hat in mock gallantry, and said, "I have
+the honor to be your obedient servant. And who are you?"
+
+The girl, bouyed up by a combination of pride and fear, replied, "I
+am Eleanor White, the daughter of the man whom your wit has rendered
+famous." And their eyes met in level, steady look. Fair femininity
+aroused caught the eye and the ear of Sir Walter.
+
+"Yes," said he, "I think I have seen you. And what can I do for you?"
+
+"Only this," said Eleanor, "that from this day forth you will not
+attribute any more of your ribaldry to my father."
+
+"Otherwise, what?" asked Sir Walter.
+
+"Otherwise you will have me to deal with," said the proud Eleanor, and
+walked past him.
+
+He tried to call her back; he felt humiliated that she did not turn and
+look, much less listen. He had been snubbed.
+
+The banderilla went home, and the next day Sir Walter felt that he must
+hunt out this girl with the yellow locks and make peace with her, for
+surely he of all men did not want to hurt the feeling of any living
+being, neither did he want his own feelings hurt.
+
+So he sought her out, and that which began in a quarrel soon evolved
+into something else. There were meetings by moonlight, notes passed,
+glances given, hand-clasps in the dark, and all of those absurd,
+foolish, irrelevant and unnecessary things that lovers do.
+
+The girl was not of noble birth. But neither was Sir Walter, for that
+matter. Love knows nothing of titles and position. But how could these
+two ever imagine that they could elude the gimlet eyes of Good Queen
+Bess, who wasn't so very good! Queen Elizabeth had ways of punishing
+that were exquisite, deep, delicate and far-reaching, which touched the
+very marrow of the soul.
+
+Sir Walter had been presented by the Queen with a title to all the land
+in America, from Nova Scotia to Florida; and he, in pretty compliment,
+had officially named this tract of land Virginia.
+
+The French had taken possession of the New World at the North, and
+the Spaniards at the South, and along the coast of what is now North
+Carolina the English had planted a colony.
+
+It was the intention of Sir Walter to send expeditions over and take
+the whole land captive, so that Virginia would in fact be the land of
+the Virgin Queen.
+
+At the center of this tract along the coast was to be the city of
+Raleigh. The Queen and Sir Walter had worked this out at length, and
+she had given him a special charter for the great city to be.
+
+And now behold! She, with the mind of a man, had perfected her plans
+for the building of the city of Raleigh. She planned an expedition, and
+fitted out the ships with sixty men and women from a receiving-ship
+that lay in the Thames.
+
+These people were being sent out of England for England's good. And
+these were the people who were to found the city of Raleigh; and the
+Governor of this colony was to be--John White! he was to be the first
+mayor, Lord Mayor, of the city of Raleigh.
+
+Queen Elizabeth had selected a husband for Eleanor White, an unknown
+youth--a defective, in fact, and one without moral or mental
+responsibility. She had forced a marriage, or in any event had recorded
+it as such. The youth was known as Ananias Dare. Even in the naming
+of this individual, who had never dared anything, the name "Ananias"
+carried with it a subtle sting.
+
+John White and his daughter Eleanor, and Ananias Dare, were taken
+forcibly and put on the ship, which was duly provisioned, and the order
+given to found the city of Raleigh on the Island of Roanoke in the
+country called Virginia. A suitable sailor was selected as navigator,
+and orders were given him to land the colonists, and come back.
+
+And so the expedition sailed away for the New World; and Sir Walter
+Raleigh in the secret of his room beat his head in anguish 'gainst the
+wall and called aloud for death to come and relieve him of his pain.
+And thus did Queen Elizabeth dispose of her rival, and punish with
+fantastic hate and jealousy the man she loved.
+
+John White, Eleanor and Ananias Dare, with the motley group of
+unskilled men and women, were duly landed in the forest on Roanoke
+Island. Battle with the elements requires judgment, skill, experience,
+and these were things that our poor colonists did not possess.
+
+Two weeks after landing on Roanoke Island a daughter was born to
+Eleanor. The captain of the ship had given orders that if the babe was
+a boy it was to be named Walter Raleigh Dare; if a girl the name was to
+be Virginia.
+
+And they called the child Virginia Dare, and her name was so recorded
+in the history of the colony. She was duly baptized a week later,
+and the record of her birth and baptism still exists in the Colonial
+Archives in London.
+
+This was the first white child born in America.
+
+Very shortly after the baptism of the babe, the captain of the ship
+sailed away for England, leaving the colonists in their ignorance and
+helplessness to battle with the elements, wild beasts, and Indians as
+best they could.
+
+We can imagine with what cruel delight Queen Elizabeth called Sir
+Walter Raleigh into her presence and had him read aloud to her and the
+assembled court the record of the birth of Virginia Dare.
+
+As for the colonists, their days were few and evil. Dissensions and
+feuds arose, as they naturally would. John White was deposed as
+Governor, and when he resisted he was killed.
+
+The idea of going to work, tilling the soil, and building a permanent
+settlement was not in the hearts of those people. They expected to find
+gold and silver and fountains of youth. They felt they were marooned,
+robbed and stranded. The Indians, at first fearful, were now jealous
+of these white intruders. The quarrel came and the Indians fell upon
+the colonists and killed every one. Every one, did I say? There was one
+saved; it was the little white baby, Virginia Dare.
+
+She was rescued by a squaw, who but a short time before had lost her
+own babe, and her hungry mother heart went out to that helpless little
+white waif. She seized upon the child and carried it away into the
+forest for safety.
+
+
+
+
+PART TWO
+
+
+On Thursday, October Twenty-ninth, Sixteen Hundred Eighteen, at the
+Tower of London, the curtain fell on the fifth act of the life of Sir
+Walter Raleigh. It was a public holiday for all London.
+
+The morning was cold and foggy.
+
+Sir Walter was kept standing on the scaffold while the headsman ground
+his axe, the delay being for the amusement and edification of the
+people assembled. The High Sheriff approached the man who was so soon
+to die, and asked if there was not some last message he wished to send
+to some one. Sir Walter took from his neck a gold chain and locket. He
+handed them to the Sheriff and said, "Send these by a trusty messenger
+to Virginia Dare by the first ship that sails for the New World."
+
+Sir Walter's frame shook in the cold, dank fog, and the Sheriff offered
+to bring a brazier of coals, but the great man proudly drew his cloak
+about him and said: "It is the ague I contracted in America. I will
+soon be cured of it!" And he laid his proud head, gray in the service
+of his country, calmly on the block, as if to say, "There now, take
+that, it is all I have left to give!"
+
+Among the crowd that pushed, jostled, leered and looked was one Oliver
+Cromwell, short, swart and strong, a country youth who had come up to
+London to make his fortune. And Oliver Cromwell there and then made a
+vow that he would dedicate his life to the death of tyranny. So died
+Sir Walter Raleigh.
+
+And Oliver Cromwell went forth to meet Fate as Destiny had willed.
+
+
+
+
+PART THREE
+
+
+The Indian woman who rescued Virginia Dare was Wahceta, wife of
+Manteno, the Croatoan chief.
+
+This Indian woman had other children of her own, some almost grown up,
+and when she brought this little white waif into their midst they gazed
+in awe and wonderment, and exclaimed, "White Doe!" And this was the
+name given by common consent to the little intruder.
+
+Wahceta cared for the babe as if it were her very own.
+
+The helplessness of the little guest made an appeal to Wahceta, and
+she guarded her charge with jealous eyes, and a love that she had
+never manifested for her own children. Manteno looked on and shrugged
+his shoulders in half token of fear, for a white doe was a thing to
+be feared, since the superstition was that it was sent by the Great
+Spirit as a warning.
+
+Hunters to this day are familiar with the occasional appearance of a
+white deer--an albino--one of Nature's sports, like the proverbial
+black sheep, to be found in every flock of white ones.
+
+The Indians regarded a white doe as invincible to all weapons save a
+silver arrow alone. A white doe bore a charmed life, and was looked
+after with especial care by protecting spirits.
+
+And so in wonder, when Wahceta would walk past, bearing on her back the
+white babe, the Indians silently made way, feeling somehow that they
+were close to the Great Spirit.
+
+The child grew and learned to speak the Croatoan language with a
+glibness that made Wahceta laugh aloud in glee.
+
+White Doe had flaxen hair, that glistened with the sheen of the
+sunshine. Very proud was Wahceta of those yellow locks, and she used to
+braid them in long strands, while the Indians stood around, looking on,
+having nothing else to do.
+
+One day, when White Doe was about ten years old, she went away into the
+forest as she often did; but when night came on she had not returned.
+Wahceta went out to look for her, and called aloud in shrill soprano,
+but no reply came.
+
+Manteno was appealed to, to arouse the braves and go search for the
+lost little girl. But Manteno was tired and sleepy, and he had faith
+in Providence. He knew that the child would be cared for by the Great
+Spirit. Wahceta started a bonfire on the hill above the village, and
+waited away the long hours of the night for her lost baby.
+
+In the morning, just as the sun peeped over the tree-tops, White Doe
+appeared, her hair all wet with the dew of the night, and her feet cut
+and bleeding.
+
+She was leading and half-dragging something--was it a dog or a wolf?
+Wahceta sprang forward to take the child in her arms. "Get behind,
+mother, and push," said little White Doe. "It's a white doe and I've
+held it all night for fear it would get away! Push hard, mother, dear,
+and we will get it in the teepee and tie it with green withes, and it
+will become gentle, and bring us all good luck."
+
+The child had discovered this white fawn with its mother, feeding near
+a salt-lick. White Doe lay on a rock above the spring, waiting for the
+deer to come up close. There the girl waited for hours. She knew that
+at dusk the deer would come to the spring.
+
+Sure enough, her patience was suddenly rewarded. She leaped from her
+rock and pinned the white fawn fast. The old deer disappeared into the
+forest. The girl held on to her prize. It struck her with its forefeet,
+but she held it close. By and by, tired out, the fawn lay still and
+rested entwined in the girl's arms. Now came the test--to get it home!
+She succeeded.
+
+In the teepee of Wahceta, the animal was fed, caressed and cared for.
+
+It grew docile, and in a few days followed its little mistress
+about wherever she went. The Indians looked on in half-dread, with
+superstitious awe.
+
+"All the wild animals would be as tame as this if you were not so cruel
+to them," she said. "You fear the wolves and bears and so you kill
+them!"
+
+To prove her point she began to hunt the forests for young bears and
+cub wolves. She found several, and brought them home, making household
+friends of them. And still more did the Indians marvel. So the days
+went by then, as the days go by now, and White Doe grew into gorgeous,
+glowing girlhood.
+
+Her ability to run, climb, shoot with bow and arrow, to see, to hear,
+to revel in Nature, gave her a lithe, strong, tall and beautiful form
+and an alert mind. Of her birth she knew nothing, save that she was
+descended from another race--a race of half-gods, the Indians said.
+White Doe believed it, and her pride of pedigree was supreme.
+
+The other children, dark as smoked copper, stood around clothed in
+their black hair--and little else--hair as black as the raven's wing.
+
+Wahceta watched her charge with fear for the future. White Doe had
+temper, intelligence, wit, ability. She would roam the forests alone,
+unafraid. She knew where the bee-trees were, for even as a child she
+saw that the bees would gather at the basswood, and then loaded with
+honey would fly straight away for their homes. To follow them in their
+flight required a practised eye, but this White Doe had, and always the
+white doe followed her. She wove the inner bark of the slippery-elm
+into baskets, and would supply the teepee of Wahceta and Manteno with
+more berries, potatoes and goobers than any other teepee enjoyed.
+
+Then she laid out gardens and tilled the soil with a wonderful wooden
+hoe, carved out of solid hickory with her own hands. Wahceta was
+growing old, and as her sight was becoming dim White Doe would lead
+her about through the forest and care for her as Wahceta once cared for
+White Doe.
+
+The work of looking after Manteno's tent drifted by degrees into the
+hands of White Doe. Her industry, her thrift, her intelligence set her
+apart.
+
+The Indian is like a white man in this: he allows work and
+responsibility to drift into the hands of those who can manage them.
+White Doe set about to build stone houses to replace the bark teepees.
+Where did she get the idea? Prenatal tendencies you say? Possibly. She
+drew pictures with a burnt stick on the flat surface of the cliff, and
+then ornamented these pictures with red and blue chalk which she dug
+from the ground. She took the juice of the grape, the elder and the
+whortleberry, and brewed them together to make wondrous colors for the
+pictures: and in some of the caves of North Carolina may be seen the
+pictures, even unto this day, drawn by White Doe. Wahceta passed away
+and her form was wrapped in its winding-sheet of deerskins and bark and
+placed high in the forks of a tree-top, awaiting the pleasure of the
+Great Spirit.
+
+Manteno also died. And the people did not choose another chief--they
+looked to White Doe for counsel and guidance. She was their
+"medicine-man," in case of sickness or accident, and in health their
+counselor and Queen. Indians from other towns and distant came to her.
+She cured the sick and healed the lame.
+
+She lived alone in a stone hut, guarded by a wolf and a bear that
+she had brought up from their babyhood. They followed her footsteps
+wherever she went, and also, too, came the white doe, fleet of foot,
+luminous of eye, sensitive, intelligent, seemingly intent on carrying
+the messages of her mistress.
+
+White Doe, the Indian Queen, with long yellow hair, and the big, mild,
+yet searching blue eyes, knew her power and exercised it.
+
+Indian braves, young and handsome, came and sat on the grass
+cross-legged for hours, at a discreet distance from her hut, making
+love to her in pantomime. They sent her presents rare and precious, of
+buckskins, tanned soft as velvet, nuggets of silver strung as beads and
+strings of wampum.
+
+These braves she set to work down in the bottom-lands. It is said
+that no other person was ever able to set the male Indian to work.
+But for her the braves built stone houses, planted gardens, and laid
+stepping-stones across the fords, so that she could walk across
+dry-shod. The nuggets of silver that they brought her from the
+mountains she fashioned into an exquisite arrow of silver, sharper at
+the point than the sharpest flint. For days and weeks and months she
+worked making the silver arrow.
+
+"What is it for?" the Indians asked.
+
+"It is to help me when all other help is gone," she said.
+
+And the Indians were silent, mystified.
+
+She planted slips of grapes brought from the sunny slopes; these she
+tended, dug about, trained and trimmed. The wonderful Scuppernong Grape
+was her own evolution. By care and culture it covered the cabin where
+she lived, and reached out to an oak a hundred feet beyond.
+
+She showed the Indians how to double their crops of corn, how to grow
+such melons as the Indian world had never before known.
+
+She taught them that it was much better to work and produce flowers,
+grain, grapes, and make pictures on the rocks than to roam the woods
+aimlessly, looking for something to kill.
+
+She told them that the Great Spirit loved people who were kind and
+useful, and temperate in the use of the juice of the grape and in all
+other good things. So the Croatoans advanced and grew in intelligence
+quite beyond any of the other Indian tribes on the Atlantic coast. One
+day White Doe sat at the door of her cabin, under the great vine where
+hung the grapes.
+
+She was intently painting a picture on buckskin.
+
+The white doe was nibbling at the bushes only a few feet away.
+
+The gray wolf crouched at her feet suddenly snarled, and the hair on
+his back arose in wrath.
+
+White Doe looked up, and there at a distance of a hundred feet stood a
+man--a pale faced man.
+
+He saw the wolf, and stood stock-still. White Doe looked at the man,
+and suddenly her heart beat fast. She felt the color mounting to her
+face. She drew her long, yellow hair over her neck and her buckskin
+dress up at the shoulder. The man motioned for her to come to him.
+Evidently he saw the wolf and dare not go forward. She arose, pacified
+the wolf, and slipped forward.
+
+The man had a dark beard, but his complexion told her that they were of
+the same race.
+
+He spoke to her in English.
+
+She had never before heard a word of the language spoken.
+
+In amazement she listened, and then shook her head.
+
+The man now resorted to the sign language; he made the motions of
+paddling a canoe, and pointed toward the sea. And then she knew that he
+had come from far across the sea in a ship.
+
+He took from one of his pockets a chain of gold; and attached to this
+chain was a little gold locket.
+
+He opened the locket and showed her a picture inside. On the locket was
+engraved the words, "To Sir Walter Raleigh, from his Queen, Elizabeth."
+
+White Doe saw the inscription, but she could not read it.
+
+The man offered to put the chain and locket about her neck. She stepped
+back, and the wolf at her heels snarled. She made a motion that the
+interview was ended and that the man should go to see the Indians whose
+houses and cabins were but a short distance away.
+
+The man did not go. Instead, he in the universal sign language took
+off his hat, pressed his hand on his heart, and fell on one knee. He
+motioned to the East, away--away, away across the sea!
+
+Would she go with him?
+
+Proudly she shook her head, half-smiled and again ordered him to go.
+
+Her manner said plainly that this was her home: She was Queen of the
+Croatoans--was this not enough?
+
+A shade of anger moved across the man's face. He was used to having his
+orders obeyed. He moved toward her as if he would seize her. Now it was
+her turn to stand still. The wolf leaped to her side, and across the
+intervening space from the cabin lumbered a big black bear.
+
+The man now backed slowly away some ten paces, and then he lifted a gun
+that lay on the grass where he had left it.
+
+Suddenly a score of white men emerged from the bushes.
+
+There was a flash of fire, a loud explosion, a great volume of white
+smoke. And the wolf, the bear, and the white doe all fell weltering in
+their blood.
+
+The wolf was not dead, and with fierce snarls tried desperately to
+crawl toward the white man. One of the men ran forward and beat its
+brains out with a club.
+
+The Indians came rushing from their houses.
+
+There was another flash of fire, a cloud of smoke, and the forward
+Indian fell dead. The rest of the red folks fled in wild alarm. White
+Doe stood still, her yellow hair blowing in the sunshine. Again the
+leader of the white men came forward, a smile of triumph on his face.
+His manner said more plainly than any words could express: "You are in
+my power. See! I have killed your protectors, your friends. So I can
+kill you. You must come with me."
+
+He pressed his hand to his heart in sign of love.
+
+The woman backed away from him, her eyes shooting hatred and defiance.
+
+At her girdle hung the silver arrow. Her hand now reached for it.
+
+The man leaped forward and attempted to seize her. His reach fell
+short, for the woman was quicker and quite as strong as he. She flung
+him aside. The silver arrow was in her right hand. She held it aloft
+like a dagger.
+
+The man retreated.
+
+"Coward," she cried in Croatoan. "Coward! It is not for you. It is my
+last friend--the friend that has been waiting to save me all these
+years!"
+
+The arrow flashed in the air, and with a terrific lunge went straight
+to the woman's heart.
+
+She leaped into the air, reeled and fell across the body of the dying
+doe. And the blood of the two friends intermingled.
+
+
+     SO HERE, THEN, ENDETH THE TALE OF "THE SILVER ARROW," WRITTEN BY
+     ELBERT HUBBARD, AND MADE INTO A BOOK BY THE ROYCROFTERS, AT THEIR
+     SHOPS, WHICH ARE IN EAST AURORA, COUNTY OF ERIE, STATE OF NEW
+     YORK, ANNO DOMINI, NINETEEN HUNDRED THIRTY-ONE, AND SINCE THEIR
+     FOUNDING THE THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR [decoration]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Silver Arrow, by Elbert Hubbard
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59864 ***