About nine in the evening, when many of the principal officers were on the quarter-deck indulging in the freshness of the night air, the forecastle being manned with its customary watch, Orellana and his companions, having prepared their weapons, and thrown off their trowsers and other cumbrous parts of their dress, came all together on the quarter-deck, and drew towards the door of the great cabin. The boatswain reprimanded them for their presumption, and ordered them to be gone; on which Orellana spoke to his followers in their native language, when four of them drew off, two towards each gangway, and the chief and six remaining Indians seemed to be slowly quitting the quarter-deck. When the detached Indians had taken possession of the gangways, Orellana placed his hands hollow to his mouth, and bellowed out the war-cry of the savages, said to be the harshest and most terrifying of sounds. This hideous yell was the signal for beginning the massacre; upon which all the Indians drew their knives and brandished their prepared double-headed shot. The chief, and the six who remained with him on the quarter-deck, fell immediately on the Spaniards with whom they were intermingled, and in a very short space laid forty of them at their feet, above twenty of whom were killed on the spot, and the rest disabled. In the beginning of the tumult, many of the officers rushed into the great cabin, where they put out the lights and barricadoed the door; while of the others, who had escaped the first fury of the Indians, some endeavoured to escape along the gangways to the forecastle, where the Indians, placed there on purpose, stabbed the greater part of them as they attempted to pass, or forced them off the gangways into the waste of the ship, which was filled with live cattle. Some threw themselves voluntarily over the barricades into the waste, and thought themselves fortunate to lie concealed among the cattle; but the greatest part escaped up the main-shrouds, and took shelter in the tops and rigging of the ship. Although the Indians only attacked the quarter-deck, yet the watch in the forecastle, finding their communication cut off, and terrified by a few of the wounded who had been able to force their passage, and not knowing either who were their enemies, or what were their numbers, they also gave all over for lost, and in great confusion ran up into the rigging of the foremast and boltsprit.