But as it was a clear moonlight night, and they found the savages in great disorder about their dead and wounded men, and a great hurry and noise among them where they lay, they afterwards resolved to fall upon them in the night, especially if they could come to give them but one volley before they were discovered. This they had a fair opportunity to do; for one of the two Englishmen, in whose quarter it was where the fight began, led them round between the woods and the sea-side, westward, and turning short south, they came so near where the thickest of them lay, that before they were seen or heard, eight of them fired in among them, and did dreadful execution upon them; in half a minute more eight others fired after them, pouring in their small shot in such a quantity, that abundance were killed and wounded; and all this while they were not able to see who hurt them, or which way to fly.
The Spaniards charged again with the utmost expedition, and then divided themselves into three bodies, and resolved to fall in among them all together. They had in each body eight persons; that is to say, twenty-four, whereof were twenty-two men, and the two women, who, by the way, fought desperately.
They divided the fire-arms equally in each party, and so of the halberts and staves. They would have had the women keep back; but they said they were resolved to die with their husbands. Having thus formed their little army, they marched out from among the trees, and came up to the teeth of the enemy, shouting and hallooing as loud as they could. The savages stood all together, but were in the utmost confusion, hearing the noise of our men shouting from three quarters together; they would have fought if they had seen us; and as soon as we came near enough to be seen, some arrows were shot, and poor old Friday was wounded, though not dangerously. But our men gave them no time, but running up to them, fired among them three ways, and then fell in with the butt ends of their muskets, their swords, armed staves, and hatchets; and laid about them so well, that in a word they set up a dismal screaming and howling, flying to save their lives which way soever they could.
Our men were tired with the execution; and killed, or mortally wounded, in the two fights, about one hundred and eighty of them: the rest, being frighted out of their wits, scoured through the woods and over the hills, with all the speed that fear and nimble feet could help them to do; and as we did not trouble ourselves much to pursue them, they got all together to the sea-side, where they landed, and where their canoes lay. But their disaster was not at an end yet, for it blew a terrible storm of wind that evening from the seaward, so that it was impossible for them to put off; nay, the storm continuing all night, when the tide came up their canoes were most of them driven by the surge of the sea so high upon the shore, that it required infinite toil to get them off; and some of them were even dashed to pieces against the beach, or against one another.
Our men, though glad of their victory, yet got little rest that night; but having refreshed themselves as well as they could, they resolved to march to that part of the island where the savages were fled, and see what posture they were in. This necessarily led them over the place where the fight had been, and where they found several of the poor creatures not quite dead, and yet past recovering life; a sight disagreeable enough to generous minds; for a truly great man, though obliged by the law of battle to destroy his enemy, takes no delight in his misery.
However, there was no need to give any order in this case; for their own savages, who were their servants, dispatched those poor creatures with their hatchets.
At length they came in view of the place where the more miserable remains of the savages’ army lay, where there appeared about one hundred still: their posture was generally sitting upon the ground, with their knees up towards their mouth, and the head put between the hands, leaning down upon the knees.
When our men came within two musket-shot of them, the Spaniard governor ordered two muskets to be fired without ball, to alarm them; this he did, that by their countenance he might know what to expect, viz. whether they were still in heart to fight, or were so heartily beaten, as to be dispirited and discouraged, and so he might manage accordingly.
This stratagem took; for as soon as the savages heard the first gun, and saw the flash of the second, they started up upon their feet in the greatest consternation imaginable; and as our men advanced swiftly towards them, they all ran screaming and yawling away, with a kind of an howling noise, which our men did not understand, and had never heard before; and thus they ran up the hills into the country.
At first our men had much rather the weather had been calm, and they had all gone away to sea; but they did not then consider, that this might probably have been the occasion of their coming again in such multitudes as not to be resisted; or, at least, to come so many and so often, as would quite desolate the island and starve them. Will Atkins therefore, who, notwithstanding his wound, kept always with them, proved the best counsellor in this case. His advice was, to take the advantage that offered, and clap in between them and their boats, and so deprive them of the capacity of ever returning any more to plague the island.