When they saw the place they had come to attack in front of them, the earl and his companions learned for the first time that they could not get across without boats, and, as the Spaniards had a fort at that point, there would have been great danger in attempting the use of that method. It seemed then, as the earl's chaplain puts it, that "we were at a flat bay; even at our wits' end." Cumberland, however, was not so soon at the end of his wits as the chaplain. He argued very justly that the Spanish horsemen whom they had just seen ride off into the woods must have some means of getting into the island, and he fairly concluded that where the Spaniards could cross, so could the English. The difficulty was to find the passage. On their march, Cumberland's soldiers had captured a negro, by whom they had been guided so far. The man spoke little Spanish, or, as we can well believe, English either, and was moreover in extreme terror between the probability that the English would kill him if he refused to guide them, and the prospect that the Spaniards would hang him for acting as guide. At last he was made to understand that the English were in search of some ford at which they could walk into the island. He led them to a point where there was a causeway, probably that where the bridge now stands. It was now late, and the whole force was very tired, so Cumberland gave his men a few hours' rest before making an attack. They all slept in their armour on the bare ground, the earl among them with his target for a pillow. Two hours before daybreak they were called quietly under arms, and prepared to rush the causeway. The earl would have led himself, but was persuaded to leave the command of the van to his lieutenant, Sir John Berkeley. The attempted surprise was a failure, though well planned and gallantly executed. The Spaniards had a stockade at the end of the causeway, and, being on the look-out, they opened a hot fire at the English as they came on. Cumberland, though he had left the leading of the storm to Berkeley, would not keep out of the fight, and his zeal led him into danger in a fashion which, to us, is not without a certain absurdity. As he was cheering his men on along the causeway in the dark, his shield-bearer stumbled and fell against him. Cumberland was thrown off his feet and pushed into the water, falling on his back, so that, being encumbered by the weight of his armour, he could not get up, and would infallibly have been drowned if two of his followers had not fished him out after several unsuccessful dives. When rescued, it was found that he had swallowed so much salt water as to be very sick. He spent the rest of the action sitting in complete prostration by the side of the causeway. When the first signs of daylight were visible, the English were called off, and retired with the loss of some fifty men.