A number of volleys were sent at the _Peoria_ with a view to disabling her gunners, but they were badly directed, and fell against her side and into the water. When the small boats reached the ship it was dark. Then the discovery was made that, besides Captain Nunez, whose body was left on the beach, there were missing, Chanler, Doctors Lund and Abbott, Lieutenant Agramonte, and two Cubans. It was reported that Chanler had been mortally wounded, and was kept hidden in the bushes along the shore by the two doctors. Rescue parties were immediately organised, composed of volunteers, and no less than four were sent ashore during the night. Toward morning Lieutenant Ahearn, in charge of one of these, found Chanler and his companion. Chanler’s wound proved to be in the right elbow. After sunrise Agramonte and his Cubans were discovered and brought off. _July 1._ The next day the gunboat _Helena_, under Captain Swynburn, arrived, and she and the _Peoria_ steamed in toward Las Tunas, which the Spaniards had been vigorously fortifying. Tunas is connected by rail with Sancti Spiritus, a town of considerable size, and reinforcements and artillery had been rapidly coming in. Range buoys had been placed in the bay, but avoiding these, the ships drew in to close range, and opened fire, the _Peoria_ at twelve hundred and the _Helena_ at fourteen hundred yards. The Spaniards had several Krupp field-pieces of three or four inches, mounted on earthworks along the water-front, and they began a vigorous, but ill-directed reply with shell and shrapnel. The fire of the American ships was most accurate and terribly destructive. The Spanish gunners had not fired more than fifteen or twenty shots before their guns were flying in the air, their earthworks a mass of blood-stained dust, and their gunners running for their lives. Both the _Peoria_ and the _Helena_ were struck several times, chiefly by shrapnel, but no one on either ship was injured. As they withdrew, several buildings on shore were in flames. That afternoon both ships again turned their attention to the fort and the entrenchments at the mouth of the Tallabacoa River, and for half an hour poured a wicked fire upon them. The Spaniards had been largely reinforced during the day, and some field-pieces had been mounted near the fort. These replied to the American fire, but without effect, and the shells of the two ships speedily silenced them. The iron blockhouse was struck repeatedly, and the earthworks were partially destroyed. No damage was done to the ships, and they again withdrew. That night the Spaniards burned a large wharf and the adjacent buildings, evidently expecting a landing in force the next day.