Chapter 4 - The Indian Princess
I've neglected to write here for some time. We landed on the island of La Florida and ran the ship aground, marching into the jungle. The name of the land means "flowered island" in Spanish. Some of it is too strange to write down. At some point I heard something like a bird call, but I knew it was a human voice, too eerie and beautiful to be any bird but an angel. I managed to slip away from the crew and pursue the siren's call.
Slipping away turned out to be the best choice I've made, besides signing up for this cursed venture. I nearly stumbled straight into a maiden no older than me, wearing a colorful patchwork dress, fringed and beaded, with long black hair worn down and uncovered. Red paint was smeared not on her lips like in England or even on the cheeks but across her eyes.
"Amigo?" she asked me cautiously. I recognized it as the Spanish word for friend, as she must have thought me one of the Spanish.
I fell backward against a tree, my eyes peering at her in astonishment. "Friend!" I gasped.
"English?" she asked, staring at me in curiosity.
"Sarah?" I couldn't help but let out. "Is it you?" I recognized her face, almost for dead certain, I thought, though her hair was a different color, perhaps from washing it with cooled charcoal from a fire pit.
"I am Princess Seminola of the Seminole tribe," the Indian maiden introduced herself proudly.
"Jim Hawkins is my name," I introduced myself. "From Montressor, England."
"Jim Hawkins, like a hawk!" she said.
"Just 'Jim' will do," I said. I went on, "My little Sarah, I know it's you. You must have hit your head or drowned and forgotten everything."
"Sit down and we'll have a pow-wow," the girl said, beckoning me to a fallen log where she sat as easily as a princess on her throne back in England.
"Pow-wow?" I repeated the Indian word.
"A meeting, between two friends," she said.
"You're a princess?" I asked, taking the seat beside her. "I'm not a prince, unless I pulled King Arthur's bloody sword out of the stone back in London."
"My grandfather is the mighty chief of the Seminole tribe," she explained. "He took me in. I will take you back to him and you will be one of the tribe."
"I'm taking you back to England with me," I stated matter-of-factly, grabbing her by the wrist. "And that's that."
"I have something important to do," Seminola said firmly. I sat by her side on the fallen log, like a loveseat back in England, and listened attentively. "You see, I am on a quest for the Fountain of Youth. My tribe, the Seminoles, have a legend that long ago, before the smaller tribes were united into the Seminole tribe, when my ancestor Chief Saturiwa was leader of the Timucua tribe, he met a newcomer from across the sea called "Pounce-of-the-Lion."
"Ponce de Leon," I said, having heard the story from the other perspective on the ship. "The Spanish conquistador. He landed on La Florida in 1565 though, nearly two hundred years ago."
"Things were different then. Instead of wearing patchwork clothes like the Seminoles, the Timucua wore strips of buckskin and short dried grass skirts. It was that long ago. Anyways, the two men - Chief Saturiwa and Pounce-of-the Lion - met and battled over the Fountain of Youth, but then came to a peace, realizing they were on the same quest. Pounce-of-the-Lion had traveled across the sea to find the Fountain, and Chief Saturiwa protected it as it was on their lands. Both men drank from two cups as friends."
"The chalices of Ponce de Leon," I said.
"The legend says that if both drink as friends, then both will live forever," Seminola went on. "Both men lived not just for one hundred years but two hundred years, by adding up their years together, and so they would have a friend to keep them company through the years. You see, Chief Cowkeeper is Chief Saturiwa. He is the same man."
I stared wide-eyed at the story. The year now was 1750, nearly two hundred years since Ponce de Leon's discovery of La Florida in 1565. I inwardly remembered the legend of the Fountain she had told me, as it was slightly different than the ritual I heard from Jack Sparrow, who in turn had heard it from Angelica, and her presumably from Blackbeard himself. They had said the Fountain's water would steal the other's years, not add them up together. Perhaps the Fountain could work in different ways. Perhaps the difference depended on whether it was in good will or not.
"However his two hundred years, combined from him and his friend Ponce-of-the-Lion, are nearly spent. I am to find the fountain and bring back its water of life for my grandfather, High Chief Cowkeeper, so that he will live as chief forever." She took out an empty corked glass vial from her side bag and showed it to me.
I crossed my arms. "And do you plan to drink it yourself?"
"If I get the chance."
"You hardly need it," I said. "You're still so young yourself."
"The same age as you!"
"And that's the age you would stay, if you drank it," I said. "So the story goes."
"A hard age to be," she said, crossing her own arms and standing, hips tilted. "Being young is the hardest age. A chief is old, but a warrior is young."
"A captain is old and a sailor is young," I replied. "Trust me, a captain or a chief has a harder time thinking about things. Doing things physically is easier."
"You're right," she said with a laugh, looking at me. "Will you join me on my quest?"
"I will," I said.
