We triced up the awnings and up anchor, when the tide swept us on so swiftly that I soon found it would be hopeless trying to turn the vessel, so we drifted stern first, with two oars out on each side to assist in steering. Our guns were loaded and ready, and not a voice was to be heard as we silently and swiftly drifted along. I stood on the top of the stockade to pilot the vessel. We were soon off the camp (of the land force under the Tuan Besar), from which I was hailed to look out as the enemy would fire on us directly. I replied "All right," and then stepped on deck to be under cover. Just as I was so doing, a shot was fired from the bank close abreast of us. Another five minutes, and we were fairly in the fray. I heard the enemy call "Look out, the pinnace is drifting up," and they blazed on us volley after volley, as we lay within five or six yards of their fortifications. Watson watched to fire as the enemy opened their ports, but the haze was far too dense for us to discern anything at all; I soon found, however, that we were not progressing, and had fouled something. We swung to and fro, at times close under the enemy's guns, and then away into the centre of the stream. We let go our anchor and hauled it up again, but all to no purpose, and we were at a loss to know what had fouled us. We then laid out a kedge and hove it home, without moving clear, and every now and then we blazed our 6-pounder of grape into the enemy, while they peppered us incessantly. The position was far from pleasant with guns banging all around and the fog and smoke so dense as to preclude a possibility of making out our position. At length I found that a large rattan made fast to one of the booms which had been cut adrift was holding us. The rattan was across the river, and the enemy had evidently entertained the intention of reconstructing their booms that night. I ordered a plucky young native[258] to jump down and cut it, which he did with two strokes of his sword. This had been holding us now for more than two hours under the enemy's fire. Directly the rattan was gone, the schooner swung sufficiently to bring the guns to bear on a lofty building whence most of the firing had come, and, after a round of grape, the wailing of women was heard issuing from it, and the enemy's fire was silenced. Next morning it was ascertained that the Pangiran Lada, brother of Pangiran Nipa, and some of his followers had been killed. The tide was still flowing, and the _Venus_ drifted on above the town, and anchor was cast within range of all the houses. Only one small stockaded place continued to fire on her.