“What did the old savage mean?” asked Newport as they were on their homeward way.  “Was it because he wanted to give a present in return?”

“Methinks,” answered Smith, “that Powhatan hath a sense of humor and doth wish to show us that his coronation hath so increased his importance that his cast-off garments have perforce won new value in our eyes.”

[Illustration:  Decorative]

CHAPTER XIV

A DANGEROUS SUPPER

Some months later, the first of the year 1609, there was again grave danger of starvation at Jamestown, and Smith, remembering the full storehouses at Werowocomoco, determined to go and purchase from Powhatan what was needed.  Taking with him twelve men, they set out by boat up the river.

“I doubt not,” said John Russell as they sailed along the James, now no longer muddy as in the summer but coated with bluish ice in the shallows, “I doubt not that those fat Dutchmen the Council sent over to build a house for Powhatan—­what need hath he of a Christian house?—­have grown fatter than ever upon his good victuals while we be wasting thinner day by day.”

“I have no liking for those foreigners,” exclaimed Ratcliffe, watching with greedy eyes a flock of redhead ducks that flew up from one of the little bays as the boat approached, wishing he could shoot them for his dinner.  “Were there not enough carpenters and builders in Cheapside and Hampstead that the lords of the Colony must needs hunt out these ja-speaking lubbers from Zuider-Zee?  They have no love for us, no more than we for them.  If they thought ’twould vantage them, they would not scruple to betray us to the savages.”

As they proceeded up the James, away from tidewater, the ice extended farther out into the river, until when they neared Werowocomoco there was a sheet of it that stretched half a mile out from shore.  Smith had determined, so desperate was the plight of the colonists, that he would not go back to Jamestown without a good supply of corn and other food.  He hoped that Powhatan would consent to his buying it; but he meant to take it by force if necessary.  For some time there had been little intercourse between the English and the Indians; the latter had seemed more unwilling to barter stores, and there was a rumor that Powhatan had new grievances against the white men.

The four Dutchmen who for some weeks had been building the house for Powhatan, had discussed amongst themselves the relative advantages of friendship with the werowance or with the English.  They decided that to weaken the latter would be their best policy, since they would be content to see the struggling settlement of Europeans destroyed and to entrust their own fate to the savages.  There was much in the Indian method of living which pleased them; plenty of good food and full pipes of tobacco and squaws to serve them.  So they laid their plans and imparted to Powhatan in confidence that Smith, who they knew must soon appear in search of supplies, was in reality using this need as a pretext and that he meant to fire upon the Indians and do great damage to Werowocomoco.