Had Powhatan been less specific in his demand, or less greedy in his desire, Captain Smith might have found it difficult to agree to his proposal. But, when the Werowance made a point of exacting the “two largest guns and the biggest grindstone” in the fort, Smith had no hesitation in saying that he would permit Powhatan’s messengers to carry away the articles mentioned. This point having been settled to their mutual satisfaction, the Chief detailed twelve men to guide and guard our hero on the road to Jamestown which, being but twelve miles from Werowocomico, they reached by easy marches. The Indian escort was treated with all the kindness Smith could command for them. Each was given a present and they were charged with the delivery of a package to Powhatan, containing a number of the things most highly prized by the savages. When the time for their departure came they asked for the guns and grindstone which they were to carry back to their Chief. “Certes! They be yours if you can carry them,” replied Smith, pointing, with a quizzical smile, at two demi-culverins each weighing more than four tons and a huge grindstone which four men could hardly raise on edge. The baffled savages looked on these ponderous things with dismay and had to admit that they could not be carried to Werowocomico though the whole tribe came after them. Smith was not willing that his visitors should leave without gaining some impression of the power as well as the size of the ordnance and so he loaded one of the guns with small stones and discharged it into the trees where the icicle-laden boughs were thickest. The smoke and racket that followed filled the Indians with terror and they took their leave hurriedly, doubtless glad that the roaring, fire-spitting monster was not to accompany them. The great majority of the settlers welcomed Captain Smith, whom they had never expected to see again, with genuine joy. Once more he had arrived just in the nick of time, for the affairs of the colony had been going from bad to worse during his absence and were now on the point of a crisis that, had it not been averted, would have probably effected the ruin of the colony. There had been no improvement in the government. Ratcliffe had become justly unpopular in the presidency and Archer, a pettifogging lawyer and mischief-maker, had been admitted to the Council. Martin, feeble in health and mind, had fallen under the complete domination of the other two and with them and other malcontents had entered into a conspiracy which the return of Captain Smith was just in time to frustrate. He no sooner heard of their plot to sail to England in the pinnace and desert the settlement than he bearded them in the Council room.