during the morning to carry the position. The action degenerated into a fitful exchange of musket-shots, whenever a Frenchman or a Spaniard incautiously exposed himself. "Well done, hombres!" said Jack, who had gone from point to point cheering them on, reinforcing weak spots, narrowly escaping the enemy’s bullets as he moved at times across the line of fire. He had been quick to mark instances of special bravery or skill, and the few words of praise he spoke nerved the ardent Spaniards to still more strenuous exertions. In the afternoon, as he was resting in the Casa Alvarez, news was brought that the French had been seen clearing away parts of the débris in the ruins at the farther end of the Vallejo block. "What does that mean?" he exclaimed, starting up. "They will only expose themselves to direct fire from the roofs and the barricade." Hastening with Don Cristobal to the roof of the Casa Tobar, he sought for an explanation of the new movement. Suddenly it occurred to him: the French were about to bring the gun, which had been driven away from the angle of the street, to a position whence it would bear upon Vallejo, and the work they were doing was for the purpose of clearing away anything that might intercept its fire. "We can’t hold Vallejo against a bombardment," he remarked. "Stay! Perhaps Don Casimir would lend us a gun from his ramparts. Things have been pretty quiet with him lately. Antonio, run off with twenty men and ask Don Casimir to let you have an eight-pounder, with grape and round-shot. If we can get a gun to bear, Señor, the work the French are doing will assist us as much as themselves." "Can we mount the gun?" asked Don Cristobal, descending with Jack. "We can but try. ’Where there’s a will there’s a way’, as we say in England." Twenty minutes later Antonio returned with his men, hauling the eight-pounder briskly along towards the barricade. It was easily taken into the patio of the Casa Vallejo, but to move it thence into a position facing the French would necessitate the breaking of the wall of one of the ground-floor rooms. It was approaching nightfall when, from his post of observation on the roof of Tobar, Jack saw that the French had completed their work. He could just perceive the muzzle of their gun, carefully blinded with beams, protruding from a sort of screen in the ruins of the second house from Vallejo. He was confident that they would not begin their bombardment until the following morning, and he hoped to use the hours of darkness to place his own gun. Before darkness fell, with Don Cristobal’s help he took, from several points, careful observations of the position of the French gun, and on the stone floor of the room opening on to the patio in Vallejo he drew chalk lines indicating what appeared to be a suitable position for his eight-pounder.