“Tell your Werowance,” ran Smith’s message, “that I have all his warriors penned up as we pen our sheep. It is within my power to cut off the Powhatans root and branch, and if I visit them with their deserts, that will I do. For the present I demand the immediate surrender of the foreign renegados who fled from this place and those that I sent to work at Werowocomico. I make no conditions. What I may do with the warriors of the Powhatans is yet to be determined. Mayhap my temper may cool upon reflection, but at present my heart is filled with wrath against Powhatan and all his tribe. Go! I have spoken!” The following day the Indian messenger and the two Englishmen returned, but they were unaccompanied by the Dutchmen. From Powhatan the chief brought this message: “Powhatan is bowed in anguish and his gray hairs sweep the dust. He prays the great English Werowance to hear these his words for they are spoken in truth and all sincerity from the bottom of his heart. Powhatan pleads for mercy and the friendship of Captain Smith. Never again, so long as Powhatan lives, will he or any of his people raise hand against the English. This is no idle talk, Powhatan swears it by the name of his gods and the god of the strangers and will give ample hostages to insure his good faith. Why should Captain Smith slay the warriors who but obeyed the commands of their Werowance? Would he visit his wrath upon the squaws and children of the Powhatans who sit wailing in their wigwams? If the fields of Werowocomico, of Pamaunke and of Oropaks, yield no harvest in the coming fall, where will the English procure corn to stay their hunger? But if the white Werowance must satisfy his just wrath, then let him come to Werowocomico and sate it upon me. I am here alone and unguarded and will bow my head to the stroke of his sword. Then let him return and release my warriors so that the wailing of my people may not reach my ears in the happy hunting grounds of my fathers. “As to the renegados, who betrayed me as they had betrayed you, it is not in Powhatan’s power to return them to you for they were slain before your messengers arrived in Werowocomico. The hungry curs slunk back to their wigwams in time for the morning meal. This I gave them in plenty--for it is not our custom to send a man fasting to the spirit-land--but afterwards their brains were dashed out by my orders and their bodies have been seen by the English captains who came with your messenger. “Powhatan has spoken the last word. Let the English Werowance decide. Powhatan here awaits his death at the hands of Captain Smith, if it will redeem his people, but if his warriors must be doomed, then let Powhatan come and join them in their death so that all may go together to the happy hunting grounds.”