Yet each minute of that night, winged or halt, slow or quick-fleeting, was to every man big with import and terrible endeavor. The very air that filled their lungs seemed impregnated with suspense. Here was no camp-fire and lounging throng in the main square, but only gloom and solitude, for the colony, broken up into small commands, stood in alert attitudes, with straining eyes, at every entrance. The armistice was apparently at an end, yet some few consoled themselves with the fond delusion that the Winginas’ intermittent attack had not been inspired by the Spaniards. One or two of these sought Manteo to question him concerning the numbers of his hereditary foemen, but Manteo was not in the town. And, furthermore, not one of his tribe could be found save a few of the women. The Hatteras Indians had disappeared, men and boys, mysteriously. “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.