The night and early morning passed quietly.

The chatter of many voices showed that a portion, at any rate, of the assailants were beyond the stockade; but it was not until nine o'clock that numerous parties were seen coming from the forest.
"I suppose they have been making ladders all night," Harry said to Abdool, who was with him on the wall; from which, owing to the fact that the house stood on a rising knoll of ground, which commanded a good view over the stockade, the assailants could be seen.
"Well, I have no doubt we shall be able to beat them off.

We have as many men as we want for the circuit of the walls and, while we shall be partly sheltered, they will have to advance in the open." The Malays had, indeed, been busy since daybreak in manufacturing arrows from thin reeds and bamboos, used in the construction of the huts demolished on the previous evening; tipping them with chips of stone and winging them with feathers, of which plenty were found in the houses and scattered about the yard.

All felt that this would be the decisive attack; and that the enemy, after one more repulse, would draw off.

That the repulse would be given, all felt confident.