Knowing the weakness of the enemy, Sir J. Brooke now proposed that they should sally out and attack them, and in case of pursuit or severe repulse it was only a matter of ten minutes’ run to regain the fort, where they could defy further molestation. But the proposition took the army aghast. What! walk right up to the brass guns? Surely the English Rajah must be mad. The attack must be made from behind a wall, or not at all; and why not, when to build forts was so easy? and it was only a matter of so many seven hours’ labour to build fort after fort as they advanced and until they had arrived within convenient musket range of the enemy. So the Grand Army retired to bed. Next morning they were up and doing, hammering and tinkering at the new stockade. In the midst of the work, however, there was a tremendous commotion--the enemy was advancing. There could be no mistake about it: you could hear their shouts and the banging of their war gongs approaching nearer and nearer. The Brooke army, nothing daunted replied with yells just as furious and defiant, and by way of refreshing their courage, several charges of powder and shot were expended in the air. The enemy approach within hail, and the excitement is grand. “We are coming! we are coming!” shouted the rebels; “lay aside your muskets, and come out and fight us with swords.”--“Come on,” replied the others; “we are building a stockade and want to fight you.” Things having arrived at this critical pass, there is no knowing what might have been the result, when merciful nature, to avert the horrors of blood and carnage, interposed with a heavy shower of rain, before which the rebels retreated, followed by the derisive shouts of the Borneans, who were under cover, and whose leaders immediately proceeded to offer a fervent thanksgiving for the victory gained, the soldiers responding with edifying earnestness, and then all retired to rest calmly as on the preceding night. Next morning, however, Sir J. Brooke, whose curiosity was long since satisfied, and who began to grow tired of witnessing this novel mode of warfare, encouraged the troops to make an advance, to proceed indeed to within three hundred yards of the enemy’s stronghold, and there to erect a new stockade, backing his urging with the promise to send aboard for two six-pounder carronades with which to mount it. During the progress of this work Sir J. Brooke took occasion to inquire of the Dayak commander, Macota, if this was the way a battle was always conducted in these parts. Macota was very eager to set our countryman right on a point that so closely affected the honour of his nation. The enemy, he declared, during his last campaign were much more courageous than now. Stockade was opposed to stockade, and the fighting constant and severe; and so ably had Macota generalled his troops, that during two months he had not lost a single man, while _five_ of the enemy were stretched upon the field.