The Turks still held the little island, and had preserved intact the bridge of boats by which communication with their army on the right bank of the Danube was maintained. They had mounted on this island six pieces of cannon, which completely commanded the approach from the left bank of the river, so that any attempt to capture it by day would have been out of the question, even if the bridge of boats had not enabled the enemy to hurry reinforcements across at the first alarm. Rossworm, however, considered that, if the communications of the garrison of the island with their army could be temporarily interrupted by the destruction of this bridge, a night attack might very well prove successful. On the night of October 8-9 he determined to make the attempt, and accordingly dispatched engineers to blow up the bridge, while a large force was brought into the Isle of Adon, and boats and rafts collected to ferry them across. The engineers duly succeeded in destroying the bridge, but the Hungarians, who formed the advance-guard of the attacking force, remained inactive in their boats in the middle of the river, awaiting the arrival of a body of pikemen whom they had demanded as supports, in case there should be cavalry on the island. The consequence was that the Turks were given time to send over reinforcements, and the opportunity was lost. Rossworm returned to his camp in great wrath, anathematizing the Hungarians, whom he accused of cowardice. The Hungarian chiefs indignantly repudiated such an aspersion, and, to redeem their reputation, volunteered to cross the river and construct a fort in the plain between Buda and the Turkish camp. Rossworm accepted this offer, though it is difficult to understand how he could have countenanced an undertaking which could have no other result than the useless sacrifice of gallant lives; and on the night of October 10-11, some 1,300 Hungarians landed on the right bank, unperceived by the enemy, and began to entrench themselves. They worked desperately all night, but when morning dawned, a Turkish flotilla appeared upon the scene, and bombarded their hastily-constructed fort from the river; while the enemy in great force assailed it from the land side. After an heroic resistance, the Hungarians were obliged to abandon it, with the loss of some 300 men, and retreat to the caiques which were waiting to take them off. So fierce was the pursuit that some of the Turkish cavalry spurred their horses into the water to attack the caiques, and two were made prisoners with their steeds. Rossworm had placed a number of cannon in the Isle of Adon to cover the retreat of the Hungarians, but only two of these pieces appear to have come into action, which Bassompierre tells us the general ascribed to the fact that, the day being a Sunday, most of the artillerymen were drunk.