Powhatan and our captain may have made all those long speeches, which were so creditable to the latter. At the conclusion of every one of the emperor's utterances, he demanded that the English should come to him unarmed. One of Smith's speeches--nay, all of them, I should like to repeat here, but one of them pleases me more than the rest. At the end of two days' travail the Captain sums up:--
"Powhatan, you must knowe as I have but one God, I honour but one King; and I live not here as your subject, but as your friend (!) to pleasure you with what I can. By the gifts you bestowe on me you gaine more than by trade; yet would you visit mee as I doe you, you should knowe it is not our customes to sell our courtesie as a vendible commoditie."
The story is too long to relate here. The struggle was between an angry, jealous savage and a very hungry Englishman. It ended in Smith's attempt to carry out his plan and capture Powhatan, in the flight of the latter, in two or three perilous positions in which Smith came near falling into traps set for him and losing his life,--and finally, in a scheme of Powhatan's to make friends again, load the pinnace with corn, and invite all the visiting party to a series of merry entertainments, feasting, and dancing. A great banquet was to follow this merriment. At this banquet every white man was to be massacred. It is a peculiarity of the Indian that when he means mischief he feeds his victim with one hand and brains him with the other.
[Illustration: "'Powhatan comes to kill you all.'"]
"The eternal all-seeing God did prevent Powhatan, and by a strange meanes. For Pocahontas, his dearest jewell and daughter, in that darke night came through the irksome woods, and tolde our Captaine great cheare should be sent by and bye: but that Powhatan and all the power he could make, would after come and kill us all, if they that brought it could not kill us with oure owne weapons when we were at supper. Therefore, if we would live, shee wished us presently to be gone.
"In requital for this information, our President would have given her such things as she delighted in, but with teares running downe her cheekes, she said she durst not be seene to have any; for if Powhatan should know it she were but dead; and so she ranne away as she came."[53]