he handed him the
moccasins and the fur mantle he had laid aside when they placed his
coronation robe upon him. Newport received them in amazement, not
knowing what he was to do with them; but Smith made a speech of thanks
for him.

"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