By the 28th of
September Baranof's Aleut Indian hunters had come in and camped
alongshore under protection of cannon sent close inland on a small
boat. It was a weird scene that the Russian officers witnessed, the
enemy's fort, unlighted and silent as death, the Aleut hunters
alongshore dancing themselves into a frenzy of bravado, the spruce
torches of the coast against the impenetrable forest like fireflies in
a thicket; an occasional fugitive canoe from the enemy attempting to
steal through the darkness out of the harbor, only to be blown to bits
by a cannon-shot. The ships began to line up and land field-pieces for
action, when a Sitkan came out with overtures of peace. Baranof gave
him the present of a gay coat, told him the fort must be surrendered,
and chiefs sent to the Russians as hostages of good conduct. Thirty
warriors came the next day, but the whites insisted on chiefs as
hostages, and the braves retired. On October the first a white flag
was run up on the ship of war. No signal answered from the barricade.
The Russian ships let blaze all the cannon simultaneously, only to find
that the double logs of the barricade could not be penetrated.
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