As our captain had no stenographer, we are amazed at the great length, minuteness of detail, and apparent accuracy of the long harangues that filled all that day and the next. His memory was good. His enemies have argued that his imagination was better. He undoubtedly laid himself open to this criticism, but although we may indulge ourselves in the hope that so great a man betrayed no foible, still we are all human; and which of us, having a good story to tell, can resist the temptation to embroider it a little? Does not Talleyrand say that he who can suppress a _bon mot_ deserves canonization? Is not a gorgeous bit of history worth more than a poor little _bon mot_? The brave Captain has suffered much at the hands of his stern, truth-loving fellow-man. But if we must take something _cum grano_, must we reject all? "No one thinks Herodotus a liar because he relates in minute detail conversations which no man could have remembered." Smith lived in an age of bewilderment, and amid scenes of the wildest intoxication. No doubt he had his dreams, visions, and exaggerated fancies. It is hard, but if a historian sees men in buckram in a moment of hallucination, he may really meet and overthrow an army with banners, and a wicked world will remember those men in buckram! Powhatan and our captain may have made all those long speeches, which were so creditable to the latter. At the conclusion of every one of the emperor's utterances, he demanded that the English should come to him unarmed. One of Smith's speeches--nay, all of them, I should like to repeat here, but one of them pleases me more than the rest. At the end of two days' travail the Captain sums up:-- "Powhatan, you must knowe as I have but one God, I honour but one King; and I live not here as your subject, but as your friend (!) to pleasure you with what I can. By the gifts you bestowe on me you gaine more than by trade; yet would you visit mee as I doe you, you should knowe it is not our customes to sell our courtesie as a vendible commoditie." The story is too long to relate here. The struggle was between an angry, jealous savage and a very hungry Englishman. It ended in Smith's attempt to carry out his plan and capture Powhatan, in the flight of the latter, in two or three perilous positions in which Smith came near falling into traps set for him and losing his life,--and finally, in a scheme of Powhatan's to make friends again, load the pinnace with corn, and invite all the visiting party to a series of merry entertainments, feasting, and dancing. A great banquet was to follow this merriment. At this banquet every white man was to be massacred. It is a peculiarity of the Indian that when he means mischief he feeds his victim with one hand and brains him with the other. [Illustration: "'Powhatan comes to kill you all.'"]