While he was still tying up his wound Billy staggered up with the biggest basket slung over his back, filled with five or six jagged lumps of rock weighing, as I guessed, about a dozen pounds apiece. He was panting very much, but asked, "Where's Hoggett?" and when I told him in a word that the bridge was thrown across and Hoggett intending to invade us, he cried, "I'll show him!" and immediately slung the basket off his back, and seizing one of the stones, hurled it over the plateau to the bridge below, and when he did so I peeped through a crevice to see what was the issue. The missile struck the ledge about two yards from the end of the bridge, and then bounding off, fell into the gap, but we did not hear the splash as it entered the water, because the sea itself made a pretty loud noise as it raced through the narrow channel. The men shrank back when they saw the stone, fearing no doubt lest another should light on the head of some one, and they were less inclined than ever to pay heed to the words of Hoggett, who had roared himself perfectly hoarse. I told Billy what I had seen, and bade him try again, and the second stone he cast, heavier than the first, plunged into the gap without striking either the bridge or the ledge. Of course both these shots had been made pretty much by guesswork, Billy hurling them over without exposing himself, and only able to judge the general direction. When I told him the result of the second cast, he waited a moment or two, to recover breath and to wipe the sweat from his brow; and then he took up another big stone, and jumped to the very edge of the plateau, where there was no cover at all, and setting his teeth, put all his strength into the throw. The bridge was a pretty good target, being not less than three feet wide, and Billy's aim was so true that the stone hit the bridge not far from the further end, causing it to jump so much that it lay very awkwardly askew across the gap, threatening indeed to slip into the sea. At this Hoggett jumped up and rushed to the bridge to pull it back into its former place; but meanwhile I had taken another stone and, doing as Billy had done, flung it with all my might, and it fell about the centre of the bridge, making it jump again just as Hoggett was stooping to clutch it. Billy was at my side instantly with another stone, and he aimed this time exactly at the further end of the bridge, purposing, as he told me, to hit this and Hoggett too, and he succeeded so well that the seaman, bold as he was, started back as the missile sprang up and almost struck his head. Before he could recover himself I had hurled another stone down, and I had the satisfaction of seeing this, falling a little sideways on the bridge, which was already shifted from its first position, shake the end of it clean off the cliff, and though Hoggett, braving all things, leapt forward and caught at the rope, he was too late; the bridge fell into the gap, and we heard quite plainly