A great contest of ingenuity now ensued between the Englishman and the savage--the latter apparently endeavoring to temporise only for the purpose of putting the former and his men on their guard. He especially insisted on the propriety of laying aside their arms. "Captain Smith," he continued, "I am old, and I know well the difference between peace and war. I wish to live quietly with you, and wish the same for my successors. Now the rumors which reach me on all hands make me uneasy. What do you expect to gain by destroying us who provide you with food? And what can you get by war, if we escape you and hide our provisions in the woods? We are unarmed too, you see. Do you believe me such a fool as not to prefer eating good meat, sleeping quietly with my wives and children, laughing and making merry with you, having copper and hatchets and any thing else--as your friend--to flying from you as your enemy, lying cold in the woods, eating acorns and roots, and being so hunted by you meanwhile, that if but a twig break, my men will cry out there comes Captain Smith. Let us be friends, then. Do not invade us thus with such an armed force. Lay aside these arms." The captain answered this speech, and several others to the same effect, until, either seeing or supposing that the emperor's object was hostile, he gave secret orders for hauling his boat ashore through the ice, and landing those of his company who still remained aboard. He also attempted to detain Powhatan with the delivery of divers rigmarole harangues; but the latter was not to be so easily outwitted. He introduced two or three women to sustain a sharp conversation with the enemy, and suddenly availed himself of that opportunity to leave the house, with all his attendants and luggage. In a few minutes Smith found himself surrounded with Indians; and thereupon, we are told, "with his pistoll, sword and target, hee made such a passage among these naked Diuils, that at his first shoot those next him tumbled one over another." The rest fled in all directions.