The fruits of their wicked recklessness were soon visited upon these miserable incompetents. The Indians attacked the various settlements beyond Jamestown and with almost invariable success. Martin, at Nansemond, had been kindly received by the chief of the band of that name. This treatment he requited by suddenly falling upon the village and seizing its contents. The Indians recovering from their surprise assaulted the whites and routed them. Martin fled to Jamestown, having lost many of his men and--crowning shame!--nearly all their arms. Shortly after this episode, Ratcliffe and West went to Werowocomico with two ships, each carrying thirty fully armed men--a greater force than Smith ever took upon an expedition. Powhatan, by this time moved to anger and contempt, practised against the newcomers the tactics he had so ineffectually tried against Smith. Ratcliffe and his men fell into the Indian’s trap with childish readiness and all save one were massacred. West fled and turned his prow towards England where he and his company eventually arrived in safety. Similar occurrences at last produced an astounding condition. The white colonists became actually _afraid_ of the Indians, who treated them with well-merited contempt and almost domineered over them. Gradually, the entire stock of arms and ammunition found its way into the hands of the savages. When things had reached this pass it would have been an easy matter for the Indians to have exterminated the whites. It is probable that they were only deterred from doing so by the prospect of the speedy starvation of the colony. They had consumed their provisions with blind improvidence and had made absolutely no attempt to secure a harvest. The fields had been given up to weeds and the plows allowed to rust. The Indians refused to give a grain for charity and would only trade on the most exorbitant terms. Beads and playthings were a drug in the market. Arms and ammunition were now demanded and readily obtained by the Indians, in whose minds the memory of Smith’s reception of similar proposals was fresh. Says one of the ill-fated colonists: “Now we all felt the want of Captain Smith yea his greatest maligners could then curse his loss. Now for corn, provisions and contribution from the savages, we had nothing but mortal wounds with clubs and arrows.” The cold of winter found them too weak and fearful to venture beyond the palisades in quest of firewood; besides, there was scarce an axe left in Jamestown. In this extremity, they burned the buildings and even tore down the stockade to feed the fires. They died like flies and presently the survivors were reduced to cannibalism. First an Indian who had been killed in a skirmish was eaten and then the poor wretches gave themselves up without restraint to devouring their fellows.