The
defenders dropped to a man, fearless in death as in life, though one
wounded fellow seems to have dragged himself to the balcony where he
succeeded in firing off the cannon before he was thrown over the
palisades, to be received on the hostiles' upturned spears. Meanwhile
wads of burning birch bark and moss had been tossed into the fort on
the powder magazines. A high wind fanned the flames. A terrific
explosion shook the fort. The trap-door where the women huddled
upstairs gave way. Half the refugees fell through, where they were
either butchered or perished in the flames. The others plunged from
the burning building through the windows. A few escaped to the woods.
The rest--Aleut women, wives of the Russians--were taken captive by the
Kolosh. Ships, houses, fortress, all were in flames. By nightfall
nothing remained of Sitka but the brass and iron of the melted cannon.
The hostiles had saved loot of some two thousand sea-otter skins.
All that night, and for eight days and nights, the refugees of the
forest lay hidden under bark and moss. Under cover of darkness, one, a
herdsman, ventured down to the charred ruins of Sitka.
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