There was no question of trying to retake the town. The men were in such misery that the march back to the boats taxed their strength to the breaking point. They set off over the savannah, in as good order as they could, with a wounded man, or two, in every rank of them. As they set forward, a company of horsemen rode out, and got upon their flanks "and fired at us all the way, though they would not come within reach of our guns; for their own reached farther than ours, and out-shot us more than one third." There was great danger of these horsemen cutting in, and destroying them, on the long open rolls of savannah, so Sharp gave the word, and the force shogged westward to the seashore, along which they trudged to the boats. The beach to the south of Arica runs along the coast, in a narrow strip, under cliffs and rocky ground, for several miles. The sand is strewn with boulders, so that the horsemen, though they followed the pirates, could make no concerted charge upon them. Some of them rode ahead of them and got above them on the cliff tops, from which they rolled down "great stones and whole rocks to destroy us." None of these stones did any harm to the pirates, for the cliffs were so rough and broken that the skipping boulders always flew wide of the mark. But though the pirates "escaped their malice for that time," they were yet to run a terrible danger before getting clear away to sea. The Spaniards had been examining, or torturing, the wounded pirates, and the two drunken surgeons, left behind in the town. "These gave them our signs that we had left to our boats [_i.e._ revealed the signals by which the boats were to be called] so that they immediately blew up two smokes, which were perceived by the canoas." Had the pirates "not come at the instant" to the seaside, within hail of the boats, they would have been gone. Indeed they were already under sail, and beating slowly up to the northward, in answer to the signal. Thus, by a lucky chance, the whole company escaped destruction. They lost no time in putting from the shore, where they had met with "so very bad Entertainment." They "got on board about ten a Clock at night; having been involved in a continual and bloody fight ... all that day long." Of the ninety-two, who had landed that morning, twenty-eight had been left ashore, either dead, or as prisoners. Of the sixty-four who got to the canoas, eighteen were desperately wounded, and barely able to walk. Most of the others were slightly hurt, while all were too weary to do anything, save sleep or drink. Of the men left behind in the hospital the Spaniards spared the doctors only; "they being able to do them good service in that country." "But as to the wounded men," says Ringrose, "they were all knocked on the head," and so ended their roving, and came to port where drunken doctors could torture them no longer. The Ylo men denied this; and said that the seven pirates who did not die of their wounds were kept as slaves. The Spanish loss is not known, but it was certainly terrible. The Hilo, or Ylo people, some weeks later, said that seventy Spaniards had been killed and about 200 wounded.