To bring up his men, and place them in a position among the bamboos which would enable them to frustrate this bold attempt to span the river was the work of but a minute or two for Jack; then he immediately opened a hot fire upon the working party who were engaged in moving forward the gangway. But no sooner had he done this than he found how seriously the conditions had changed for the worse during those two hours of total darkness; for now the Spaniards who had established themselves in the trenches were so close at hand that the cover of the bamboos was no longer an efficient defence, and casualties among the defenders became disconcertingly frequent. Furthermore, it soon appeared that the Spaniards had got two strong hauling parties sheltered behind a couple of low earthworks, and that these people, by means of two stout ropes attached to the gangway, were steadily and with much skill hauling the thing toward the required position. Jack soon saw, however, that it would be quite impossible for the hauling parties to haul it far enough forward to enable it to be dropped into position across the gap in the ruined bridge: a moment must come, sooner or later, when the concealed men who were dragging upon the ropes would be obliged to leave their cover and push the platform the remaining portion of the distance; and he quickly determined to reserve his energies and his ammunition until that moment. The time quickly arrived. A single bugle blast appeared to be the signal for the entrenched Spanish riflemen to concentrate their fire upon the clump of bamboo brake wherein Jack had hidden his men, and at the same instant about a hundred infantry-men sprang from behind their sheltering earthwork and made a dash at the platform, their every movement being clearly visible by the light of the vivid electric discharges which had by this time become practically continuous. With the utmost resolution they seized the light structure and started to run it forward toward the gap in the bridge; but--Jack having by this time instilled into his dusky troops the virtue of coolness and deliberation in fighting--the next moment they were swept back to cover by a perfectly withering fire that placed nearly half of them _hors de combat_.