By the time that the attack had been raging some five minutes, however, there must have been quite three hundred savages crowded on the main- deck, between the poop and the topgallant forecastle, and the affair began to wear a very serious aspect for us defenders; for by this time the blacks were making desperate efforts to climb up on to the poop and carry it by escalade, and a few of us had sustained more or less serious hurts in resisting them.
