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Powhatan on his part sent word to Smith to visit him, to send him men to build a house, give him a grindstone, fifty swords, some big guns, a cock and a hen, much copper and beads, in return for which he would load his ship with corn. Without any confidence in the crafty savage, Smith humored him by sending several workmen, including four Dutchmen, to build him a house.
Powhatan had motioned Smith to be seated on a mat beside the fire, and taking the first piece of venison, the werowance threw it into the flames as the customary sacrifice to Okee. Then he was served again, and after him each dish was offered to the prisoner. There was little talk while the feasting continued. Pocahontas, who did not eat, lost no motion of the stranger's.
The parents of two children who had died were moved by some phantasy to revisit their dead carcasses, "whose benumbed bodies reflected to the eyes of the beholders such delightful countenances as though they had regained their vital spirits." This miracle drew a great part of the King's people to behold them, nearly all of whom died shortly afterward. These people spoke the language of Powhatan.
Both were to be strong enough to fight if their commanders deemed it necessary. As flagship of the Charleston expedition, Welles had detailed the powerful warship Powhatan, which was rapidly being made ready at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Such was the situation as Welles understood it when he was thinking of bed late on the night of the 6th of April.
The Indians, with all the merry sports they could devise, spent the time till night, and then returned to Powhatan. The plot was frustrated in the providence of God by a strange means.
There has been recently found in the British Museum a print of a portrait of Pocahontas, with a legend round it in Latin, which is translated: "Matoaka, alias Rebecka, Daughter of Prince Powhatan, Emperor of Virginia; converted to Christianity, married Mr. Rolff; died on shipboard at Gravesend 1617."
And in that moment John Smith lost his faith in the friendship Powhatan had sworn to him, and he drew his sword, ready to pierce the first oncomer. Then he looked again ... and hastily thrust his sword back into its scabbard, shouting to his comrades who had also drawn their blades, "Hold!" For there before him, the first of the dancers who had run out of the forest, advanced Pocahontas!
However, that which Powhatan did or did not do, concerned me very little when Captain Newport had arrived, for he brought with him such tidings as made my heart rejoice, and caused Master Hunt to say that now indeed would our village of Jamestown grow as it should have grown had our leaders shown themselves of half as much spirit as had my master.
Now Powhatan gave an order and all seated themselves on the ground or on mats in lines facing him. Then in came the squaws bearing large wooden and grass-woven dishes of food. There were hot cakes of maize and wild turkeys and fat raccoons. The captives were served first and none of them refused. They would not let their enemies believe that fear of their coming fate could spoil their appetites.
One of the Chickahominy chiefs, whose face she remembered to have seen at the great autumn festivals, was the first to speak: "Powhatan, ruler of two hundred villages and lord of thirty tribes, who rulest from the salt water to the western forests, we come to tell thee how we have pursued thine enemies, the Massawomekes, who two months ago did slay in ambush a party of our young men out hunting deer.
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