With their bows and arrows they can shoot more steadily at short distances than we can, and we should be overwhelmed with a cloud of missiles, while unable to bring to bear the strength of our arms and the keenness of our swords against their clubs and rough spears.

I think that we could hold the house for a year against them; but if we lost many men in a fight outside, it might go hard with us afterwards." When morning dawned the garrison beheld, to their dismay, that the Indians had in the night erected a battery at a quarter of a mile in front of the gate, and that in this they had placed the culverins left on the cliff, and a score of the small pieces carried in their war canoes.
"This is the work of the two white men we saw at Ternate," Gerald exclaimed.

"No Indian could have built a battery according to this fashion." As soon as it was fairly light the enemies' fire opened, and was answered by the culverins on the roof of the house.

The latter were much more quickly and better directed than those of the Indians, but many of the balls of the latter crashed through the great gates.
"Shall we make a sortie ?" the governor asked Ned.
"I think that we had better wait for nightfall," he replied.

"In passing across this open ground we should lose many men from the cannon shots, and with so small a force remaining, might not be able to resist the onrush of so great numbers.