nlighted and silent as death, the Aleut hunters
alongshore dancing themselves into a frenzy of bravado, the spruce
torches of the coast against the impenetrable forest like fireflies in
a thicket; an occasional fugitive canoe from the enemy attempting to
steal through the darkness out of the harbor, only to be blown to bits
by a cannon-shot. The ships began to line up and land field-pieces for
action, when a Sitkan came out with overtures of peace. Baranof gave
him the present of a gay coat, told him the fort must be surrendered,
and chiefs sent to the Russians as hostages of good conduct. Thirty
warriors came the next day, but the whites insisted on chiefs as
hostages, and the braves retired. On October the first a white flag
was run up on the ship of war. No signal answered from the barricade.
The Russian ships let blaze all the cannon simultaneously, only to find
that the double logs of the barricade could not be penetrated. No
return fire came from the Sitkans. Two small boats were then landed to
destroy the enemy's {313} stores. Still not a sign from the barricade.
Raging with impatience, Baranof went ashore supported by one hundred
and fifty men, and with a wild halloo led the way to rush the fort.
The hostile Sitkans husbanded their strength with a coolness equal to
the famous thin red line of British fame. Not a signal, not a sound,
not the faintest betrayal of their strength or weakness till in the
dusk Baranof was within gunshot of the logs, when his men were met with
a solid wall of fire. The Aleuts stopped, turned, stampeded. Out
sallied the Sitkans pursuing Russians and Aleuts to the water's edge,
where the body of one dead Russian was brandished on spear ends. In
the sortie fourteen of the Russian forces were killed, twenty-six
wounded, among whom was Baranof, shot through the shoulder. The guns
of the war ship were all that saved the retreat from a panic.

Lisiansky then undertook the campaign, letting drive such a brisk fire
the next day that the Sitkans came suing for peace by the afternoon.
Three days the cunning savages stayed the Russian attack on pretence of
arranging hostages. Hailing the fort on the morning of the 6th and
securing no answer, Lisiansky again played his cannon on the barricade.
That night a curious sound, that was neither chant nor war-cry, came
from the thick woods. At daylight carrion crows were seen circling
above the barricade. Three hundred Russians landed. Appr