t once opened fire upon them from the nine-pounders as a matter of
course, but the rascals had not only learned wisdom but had also
evidently very sharp eyes, for at the moment when the match was about to
be applied to the guns the canoes immediately in the line of fire
smartly swerved from their course and the shot went hissing harmlessly
past, missing their mark by the merest hair's-breadth.

Before we had time to load again the savages had effected a landing upon
the beach, and then ensued a repetition of the previous day's fighting,
excepting that our antagonists fought with their energies renewed by a
quiet night's rest and more obstinately than ever, whilst we were weary
and fagged by our long and fruitless watch. During the desperate
struggle which consumed the next quarter of an hour half a dozen natives
managed at different times to actually force their way into the battery,
but luckily for us they got in only one at a time and they were promptly
despatched.

At last they were beaten off and compelled to retire to their canoes as
before, carrying away with them their killed and wounded--of whom I
counted no less than thirty being borne away by their comrades--our lads
"freshening their way" for them with a hot musketry fire so long as they
remained within range.

Then followed another brief interval during which we finished our scanty
breakfast, after which, having seen the guns and muskets loaded afresh,
I undertook to maintain a look-out, and ordered the men to lie down and
snatch such rest as they could get.

But our foes, wily as savages always are, had evidently in their recent
hand-to-hand struggle with us detected the evidences of our extreme
fatigue, and were by no means disposed to allow us much time or
opportunity to recuperate our exhausted energies, for the men had
scarcely flung themselves upon the ground, where sleep instantly seized
upon them, when the canoes were once more put in motion and again the
unhappy blue-jackets were called upon to resist an attack. I now began
to feel a strong suspicion that the enemy had quite counted upon our
being kept upon the alert during the whole of the previous night, the
perfect silence which they had maintained being, as they very probably
surmised, rather a harassing than a reassuring circumstance to us, and
that they fully intended to take the fullest possible advantage of this
during the ensuing day. But their heavy losses in killed and wounded
had