It would clearly be unsafe to attempt to reach the boat while the savages were in view.  As time went on they appeared to increase in numbers, and every now and then they sent a flight of arrows into the camp.  But the garrison kept out of sight behind the barricade nearest to the enemy, and their missiles either stuck in it, or fell harmlessly within the enclosure.

So the day passed.  The fact that trouble had come so soon impressed Underhill with the necessity of sending for assistance without delay.  The prospect of a siege, with only a limited supply of ammunition to repel assaults, and a scarcely greater supply of food, was very disturbing.  He had little fear of being able to beat off attack so long as ammunition lasted, but when it was all spent, the savages must overpower the white men by sheer weight of numbers.  Venables now wished to recall his undertaking, and remain in the fighting line; but Underhill decided that he must go in command of the other men.  Accordingly, at nightfall, the four crept through a small gap made in the seaward face of the barricade, and clambered down the cliff.  Underhill listened anxiously for a time, wondering whether the men had been discovered, or whether they had safely reached the boat; but after an hour of silence he concluded that either the enemy had not been watching in that quarter, or that the boat had slipped away unobserved in the darkness.

The night was undisturbed, but with dawn the natives reappeared.  The lesson of the previous day had not proved effectual; they came resolutely up to the barricade in a vast yelling horde.  Underhill ordered his men to reserve their fire until the enemy was within a few yards of the enclosure; then two rapid volleys with repeating rifles and revolvers opened a great gap in the throng, and the survivors, scared by their losses, once more betook themselves to the woods.  Several times during the day they returned to the attack, pushing it home each time with more determination, and towards evening with a rage and frenzy that could only be due to the stimulation of strong liquor.  At this last onset the defenders were almost overwhelmed, repeated volleys seeming only to inflame the fierce warriors.  For some minutes there was a hand-to-hand fight as they made desperate endeavours to scale the barricade, and only when a score of their number lay dead and wounded did they relinquish the contest.  They took away the wounded, but left the dead where they lay, and in the night the garrison had the gruesome task of carrying the bodies to the edge of the cliff and casting them into the sea.  For some time Dr. Smith was kept busy in attending to the wounded among his own party, and next day one of the stokers, struck by a poisoned arrow, succumbed to blood-poisoning, and his comrades, at dead of night, gave him sailor’s burial.