But they, seeing the miserable plight of the Pale-faces,
became insolent in their demands, and in return for niggardly
supplies of food exacted guns and ammunition, swords and tools.
And now there was no man among the colonists who knew how to manage
the Indians as Smith had managed them. There was no man among them
who thought of the future. All they wanted was to stay for a time
the awful pangs of hunger. So they bartered away their muskets and
powder, their tools, and everything of value of which they were
possessed. But even so the food the Indians gave them in return
was not enough to keep body and soul together.
The colony became a place of horror, where pale skeleton-like
creatures roamed about eyeing each other suspiciously, ready to kill
each other for a crust or a bone. They quarreled among themselves,
and they quarreled with the natives. And the natives, now no longer
filled with awe, lay in wait for them and killed them almost without
resistance if they ventured to crawl beyond the walls of the fort.
Many more died of hunger and of disease brought on by hunger.
So less than eight months after Smith had sailed away, of the
five hundred men he had left behind him but sixty remained alive.
The colony was being wiped out, and the little town itself was
disappearing; for the starving wretches had no strength or energy
to fell trees and hew wood, and as soon as a man died his house was
pulled down by his comrades and used as firewood.
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