were on the quarter-deck indulging in the freshness of the night air; the
waist of the ship was filled with live cattle, and the forecastle was
manned with its customary watch. Orellana and his companions under cover
of the night, having prepared their weapons and thrown off their trousers
and the more cumbrous part of their dress, came altogether on the
quarter-deck and drew towards the door of the great cabin. The boatswain
immediately reprimanded them and ordered them to be gone. On this
Orellana spoke to his followers in his native language when four of them
drew off, two towards each gangway, and the chief and the six remaining
Indians seemed to be slowly quitting the quarter-deck. When the detached
Indians had taken possession of the gangways, Orellana placed his hands
hollow to his mouth and bellowed out the war-cry used by those savages,
which is said to be the harshest and most terrifying sound known in
nature. This hideous yell was the signal for beginning the massacre, for
on this the Indians all drew their knives and brandished their prepared
double-headed shot, and the six, with their chief, who remained on the
quarter-deck, immediately fell on the Spaniards who were intermingled
with them, and laid near forty of them at their feet, of whom above
twenty were killed on the spot, and the rest disabled. Many of the
officers, in the beginning of the tumult, pushed into the great cabin,
where they put out the lights and barricaded the door. And of the others,
who had avoided the first fury of the Indians, some endeavoured to escape
along the gangways into the forecastle, but the Indians placed there on
purpose stabbed the greatest part of them as they attempted to pass by,
or forced them off the gangways into the waist. Others threw themselves
voluntarily over the barricades into the waist, and thought themselves
happy to lie concealed amongst the cattle; but the greatest part escaped
up the main-shrouds and sheltered themselves either in the tops or
rigging; and though the Indians attacked only the quarter-deck, yet the
watch in the forecastle, finding their communication cut off, and being