"My affair at the moment is to create peace between our peoples. I am an old man, and seek no fighting. Tell your friends to come and abide at the mouth of the Pamunkey. We will live as brothers, each in his own way, but combine against our common enemy."
Smith promised this or any suggestion now, just to get away.
"Well you may go then, and I will send my trusted Rawhide and other warriors to escort you. I only stipulate that each shall bring back one of your guns."
"Indeed they shall."
He thought of a way out of this on the two-day tramp through the woods home. Just out of Jamestown he breathed easier, but he made sure that they did not.
"See those big guns by the gates, friends? I want you to take them home to Father Powhatan."
"You know well enough that they are too big for us to lift. They would break our backs."
"You have not even tried. First let's see if they work as well as they were doing when I left. I want to give Powhatan our best."
He mischievously signalled to the gate-keeper to fire one, and it instantly shook a nearby tree into a spasm. Encrusted with ice as it was, every brittle twig scattered as far as it could go. So did one little, two little, three little, four little Indians.
Smith strode into the fort to tell his astounding tale on January 8, but kept mum about that hair-raising, but thanks to Providence and Pocahontas, not scalp-raising experience. Better not tell that one, lest he scare off colonists here, or in England.