Hastily binding their prisoner with their neckerchiefs, the sailors flung him on to the porch and rushed to join the defenders scarcely four hundred yards away. Rodriguez had carefully laid out his plan of defense, and before the attacking enemy could come to a hand to hand fight, over three hundred yards of cleared land must be traversed. As O’Neil and his men reached the trenches where the native soldiers were excitedly firing blindly into the night, he could see a bobbing line of men rapidly running across this open space, firing as they advanced. Hastily surveying his surroundings, he saw that on one flank was the river defended by a company of men and on the flank away from the river was still another company. The excited native officers were shouting orders to their men, the purport of which O’Neil could but guess. The bobbing figures seemed in vast numbers and they advanced rapidly in spite of the fire from the trenches. Suddenly the company from the river bank left its post and came at double time to the middle of the line of defense. O’Neil and his men had seized a rifle each from lifeless hands and were elbow to elbow--vociferously haranguing the men, cautioning them to aim at the constantly moving enemy. Before they could realize its significance, a line of men arose suddenly from the short grass, only a few score of yards in front of the trenches, to which point they had crawled unobserved, while the defenders had been firing at the visible enemy. The next second this avalanche of naked humanity had cleared the intervening yards and were hacking at the surprised defenders with their sharp bolos. Their friends in their rear still kept up a brisk fire and many of the bolo-men suffered by it. O’Neil suddenly found himself occupied by three fanatics bent upon his destruction, while his companions near him were in as perilous a position. Throwing away his empty rifle he drew his revolver and fired unerringly at the nearest native. Then seizing the fallen man’s bolo he rushed upon his other two assailants. So fierce had been the onslaught of the bolo-men that they had surged into and even beyond the rifle-pits, leaving a trail of destruction in their path.