had no time for sentimental musings. Upon the very day of his
unlooked for return (January 8, 1608), Ratcliffe repeated Wingfield's
attempt to escape to England in the only vessel left at Jamestown. The
anchor was actually raised when Smith hastily collected a force and
hurried to the landing. "With the hazzard of his life, with sakre,
falcon, and musket shot, Smith forced" (them) "now the third time to
stay or sinke."

In their sullen rage the foiled conspirators plotted and nearly executed
a fiendish revenge. Once more we copy from the "General History,"
written by Smith and his friends.

"Some no better than they should be, had plotted with the president"
(Ratcliffe) "the next day to have put him" (Smith) "to death by the
Leviticall law for the lives of Robinson and Emry, pretending the fault
was his that had led them to their ends; but he quickly took such order
with such lawyers that he layd them by the heeles till he sent some of
them prisoners to England."

The colony was almost destitute of food, and the memories of the famine
of last year terrified the imaginations of those who had lived through
it. "Gentlemen" having again predominated in reinforcements sent from
England, the crops planted and gathered in Smith's absence had been
meagre, while rats brought over in one of the vessels had wrought havoc
with stored grain. Like an angel of mercy was the apparition of
Pocahontas, at the head of a "wild train" of Indians laden with corn and
game, approaching the fort. "Ever once in four or five days during the
time of two or three years," the young princess, thus attended, visited
the fort and succored the needy settlers. Smith declares that "next
under God she preserved the colony from death, famine, and utter
confusion." He might have subjoined that, but for himself, not even
Pocahontas's bounty could have saved the settlement from the
consequences of misconduct and misrule.

His was the only voice lifted to condemn the mad folly of loading a
homeward-bound vessel with the glittering mud of a neighboring creek.
That he was "not enamored of their dirty skill to freight such a drunken
ship with so much gilded dirt"--was one of the mildest of his phrases,
as, "breathing out these and many other passions," he harangued those
who had "no thought, no discourse, no hope, and no work but to dig gold,
wash gold, refine gold, and load gold."

Before the English assayers confirmed his judgment as to the value of
this