"I guess it's Hoggett," said Billy all of a sudden, and up he jumps and runs to the boulder and peeps over. "Goodness alive, master!" he called to me, in a low tone; "they've been and made a bridge!" I was up in an instant, and springing to Billy's side I saw that the men were dragging up the slope from the wood a long sort of hurdle, very like our drawbridge, only longer and stouter. They were hauling it to the edge, where the cliff approached within twenty feet of the ledge on Red Rock, and if they should throw it over the gap, they would have an easy passage-way from the island to our fortress, nor did I see any means of preventing them, for while we were shooting at some of them with our bows and arrows, the rest could come across; and though we should still have the advantage of them, being above them and with good defences, I did not like to think that it was even possible for them to get a footing on our ground. The narrowest part of the gap was almost directly below us, so that if we had some heavy stones we might hope, by casting them down on the bridge, either to smash it, or to render the passage so perilous that no man would venture to make it. Though there were a great number of large rocks about us, there were none small enough to be dislodged or hurled; but I remembered having seen a number of loose stones in a fissure about half-way across our plateau, and seeing that it would be some minutes before the men came to the gap with the bridge, I bade Billy fetch as many of these stones as he could carry in a basket, while I held the men at bay.