“They have deserted us,” said some of the colonists, despairingly; but the leaders knew that, by Vytal’s command, Manteo held his men in waiting far within the western forest. Thus at a signal the friendly tribesmen could be called upon to fall on the Winginas’ rear and decimate them from an ambush.
Yet Vytal rightly conjectured that this attack of the hostile savages was a Spanish feint to draw off his soldiers from the coast; and even now, as he concentrated the pickets in a body to meet a concerted onrush from the woods, a great clamor of arquebuses and heavy pieces arose from the shore.
The Spaniards were landing. A general assault had begun from land and sea. The sound of cannonading, continual and deafening, came from the water, while from the woods the whir and whistle of arrows proclaimed a more insidious attempt.
Vytal returned to the main entrance. It was already besieged. The coast-guard had been overwhelmed. Despite their first stubborn stand, they had gone down like corn-stalks before a hurricane. There was no resisting the stampede. But the gateway, defended by Rouse and his unflinching score, still remained a barrier. Through innumerable loop-holes the defenders had thrust their fire-arms; and now an incessant volley of lead poured out from behind the palisade like a torrent of hail driven sideways by the wind. Still more effective, however, were the culverins on two high flankers that stretched out on both sides of the entrance. These cumbrous weapons, incessantly vomiting huge missiles, so enfiladed the aggressors that a sortie was deemed expedient.
Rouse let the gate swing back quickly, and Vytal, leading a dozen men, sought, by the sheer vigor and unexpectedness of his attack, to press the enemy back over the cliff which they had scaled. This seemed his only chance. By so bold a move he intended to convey the impression that large numbers within the town only awaited a signal to reinforce him. For, although Frazer, disguised as the bear, had overheard Prat’s observation concerning the colony’s weakness, there had been, Vytal believed, no possible means of communication between him and the Spaniards.
The one chance, then, seemed to lie in the exaggeration of Roanoke’s forces, by manœuvres implying fearlessness and strength.