The moon was up and full. Frank feared that
the Ashantis would try and crawl a part of the distance across the
clearing and then make a sudden rush; but they appeared to have no
idea of a silent attack. Several times, indeed, they gathered and
rushed forward in large bodies, but each time their shouting and
drums gave warning to the besieged, and so tremendous a fire was
opened upon them when they emerged from the shadow of the trees
into the moonlight, that each time they fell back leaving the ground
strewn with dead. Till midnight the attack was continued, then the
Ashantis fell back to their camp.
At Accroful, a village on the main road some four miles distant,
the attack had been heard, and a messenger sent off to Cape Coast
to inform Sir Garnet Wolseley.
In the morning fifty men of the 2d West India regiment marched from
Accroful into Abra Crampa without molestation. Later on some Abra
scouts approached the Ashanti camp and shouted tauntingly to know
when the Ashantis were coming into Abra Crampa.
They shouted in return, "After breakfast," and soon afterwards,
a rocket fired from the roof of the church falling into the camp,
they again sallied out and attacked.
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