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Some Adventures of John Smith: Powhatan

When Powhatan saw the white man, he was greatly pleased, and ordered him fed abundantly that he might be fat when the time came to kill him. Smith ate so much bread and deer meat and vegetables that he fell ill, and asked Powhatan to let him send word to his friends at Jamestown.

Smith wrote a note on a piece of bark, with a bit of burnt stick, and gave it to a messenger to take to the colony. The messenger quickly delivered the note, and came back with presents for Powhatan. But Powhatan said that any man who could make a piece of bark talk by merely marking on it was a magician, and should be put to death.

One day Smith was brought in before the savage old Chief, bound with thongs, and laid upon a stone, while the warriors prepared to beat out his brains. This would have been the end of Captain John Smith if Powhatan's daughter, Pocahontas, had not rushed in and begged her father to spare the life of the white man. Old Powhatan ordered Smith unbound, and he was led away to continue his adventures in the wilds of America.