During the loading of the barges Smith had had a heart to heart talk with Opechancanough. That chief, now thoroughly subdued in spirit and persuaded that frankness might better serve his interests than deception, gave the Englishman a fairly truthful account of the actual state of affairs. From this and his own observation, Smith reached the conclusion that the stores of Pamaunke could not well stand the strain of freighting both his barges. He decided, therefore, to be satisfied with one barge load, determining to return to Werowocomico for the second. This he felt quite justified in doing, for it was well known to him that Powhatan’s garners were always overflowing, for the great Werowance exacted a heavy tribute from the minor chiefs of the tribe. Moreover, Smith was willing to punish his adoptive father as the author of all the trouble that had befallen the expedition. Accordingly, after leaving Pamaunke, the boats turned their prows upstream and started back to Werowocomico. Towards evening the expedition, turning a bend in the river, came suddenly upon a place where a number of people were assembled on the bank, evidently awaiting their coming. They were men and women, quite unarmed, and each bearing a basket of corn. Smith chuckled when he beheld the palpable trap. “Surely they take us for barn-yard fowls and think that we will run to a handful of grain held out in a sieve. The grain we will take but in no such simple fashion.” He had no doubt that a hundred or more stout bowmen lay hidden behind the innocent looking crowd which greeted him with eager offers to trade. Dissembling his suspicions, Smith declared that the day was too far spent for trading. He would lie-to for the night, he said, and in the morning would come ashore unarmed as they demanded. When darkness had set in Smith picked twenty-five men and placed them under the commands of Percy and West. These officers were directed to take the force in one of the barges several miles farther up the river and there to land twenty of them. The remaining five were to bring back the boat that its absence might not excite the suspicions of the savages on the morrow. Percy and West were then to proceed through the forest with their men and dispose them before daylight in the rear of the Indian ambuscade. It was quite dark when the barge, with muffled oars, pulled upstream, but some hours later a clear moon arose, enabling the party to carry out its instructions to the letter. The next morning, the unarmed Indians were on the bank as before with their baskets of corn, and Smith went ashore as he had promised with a squad of men, all of whom had left their weapons in the pinnace. No sooner had they set foot on land than the would-be traders scattered and fled into the surrounding forest, leaving their baskets upon the ground. At the same instant a band of warriors rose from the cover in which they had lain hidden and drew their bows upon the English.