The unhappy Don Luis, having drawn, in broken, gasping sentences, the main outlines of his tragical story, was still filling in some of the more lurid details of that morning’s happenings upon his farm, when the lookout perched aloft on the hillside signalled the approach of the enemy; and while Carlos dashed off in one direction to sound the alarm bell and occupy his former defence post, Jack rushed off in the other to raise the temporary drawbridge which had been constructed to take the place of the wrecked stone bridge, and which was now the only means of entering upon and leaving the estate. Having raised the bridge, and carefully secured it against any possibility of becoming lowered by accident, Jack climbed the structure to its uplifted extremity, and from thence looked out over the wide plain that gently sloped away toward the east, south, and west of him; and presently he became aware of a loud, confused, rumbling jumble of sound which, when he was presently able to dissect it, resolved itself into a mingled trampling of multitudinous feet and hoofs, a rumbling and creaking of many wheels, the combined murmur of many human voices, the occasional low, deep, protesting bellow of overdriven animals, the crack of whips, and the continuous shouts of men. The air was still thick with acrid smoke, rendering it difficult to see anything clearly at a distance greater than half a mile; but presently it thickened still more, and Jack recognised that the thickening was produced by a great cloud of dun-coloured dust, out of the midst of which there presently cantered into view a number of Spanish cavalry scouts, a dozen of whom, upon reaching the main road, wheeled to their right and dashed along it toward the point of its junction with the private road leading to Don Hermoso’s estate.
Jack considered that the moment had now arrived for him to quit his post of observation, and he accordingly slid down the rail of the bridge until he reached the ground, where he was almost immediately joined by the contingent of labourers which was to operate under him, as before, for the defence of the estate at that point. The wood away to the left, and the bamboo coppice, afforded perfect cover and shelter for the whole of his party; and since each man now knew to an inch where he was required to post himself, everybody was in position and entirely hidden from sight a full minute before the leading couple of the cavalry came into view round the bend of the road leading to the ruined bridge. But no sooner did that leading couple appear than two whiplike rifle reports snapped out from somewhere in front of them, and while one rider dropped forward and collapsed on his horse’s neck, the other flung up his arms, tossed away the carbine which he was carrying in his right hand, and reeled out of the saddle to the ground with a crash, while his horse, tossing up his head, wheeled sharply round and dashed off to the rear, dragging his dead rider by the left stirrup. The next instant another pair of scouts swung into view, when again out snapped that ominous, double, whiplike crack. This time one of the two riders, dropping his carbine to the ground, clapped his right hand convulsively to his breast as he swiftly wheeled his horse and galloped off; while the horse of his companion, rearing upright and pawing the air furiously for a moment with his fore hoofs, fell backward with a crash and lay dead, pinning his helpless rider beneath him: whereupon the remainder of the party wheeled their horses, and, dashing in their spurs, took to precipitate flight.
Shortly afterwards, doubtless in consequence of the report of those men, another reconnoitring party, consisting of half a dozen brilliantly-garbed officers, approached, evidently with the idea of inspecting the nature of the defences of the estate, and ascertaining its weak points. But Jack would have none of it; the moment that they came within point-blank rifle range he opened fire upon them with his sharpshooters, and only three of the half-dozen were able to make good their retreat.
Meanwhile the main body of troops gradually debouched into view upon the plain—a motley crowd of infantry clad in rags so effectually bleached and discoloured by exposure to rain and sun that it would probably have puzzled their own officers to name the various regiments to which they belonged; about one hundred cavalry; and three batteries of field artillery: the whole accompanied by an enormous number of baggage, ambulance, and ammunition wagons, water carts, and nondescript vehicles of every imaginable description, and an immense lowing, bellowing, and bleating herd of captured cattle, sheep, and goats, many of which seemed to be half-mad with terror. Mounted officers in scores dashed frantically to and fro among this medley of men, vehicles, and animals; and finally, when the herd of cattle was at length separated from the main body and driven off, a detachment of some three thousand men, and one battery of guns, with a proportion of the wagons and other vehicles, halted on the plain, with the evident intention of attacking the estate, while the remainder of the body went forward.
The attack began immediately. A puff or two of white smoke had revealed to the reconnoitring parties the lurking-place of those who had fired upon them, and they had of course pointed out the spot to the artillerymen as that upon which they were to concentrate their fire; with the result that immediately the guns were wheeled to action front, they opened a hot fire upon the bamboo coppice. But, as on the occasion of the previous attack, no sooner had the reconnoitring parties withdrawn than Jack moved his sharpshooters from their cover of bamboo to that of a line of artfully constructed earthworks, which, while far enough removed from the bamboos to be perfectly safe from the artillery fire which he felt certain would be immediately opened upon them, equally commanded the road leading to the ruined bridge, and enabled him to effectually check all endeavours to reconnoitre that point of approach. The result was that after the bamboos had been fiercely shelled for some ten minutes, without producing a single casualty among the defenders, another reconnoitring party, believing that that particular patch of cover had been pretty effectually cleared, boldly galloped forward, under cover of the continued shell fire, to examine the spot which, from the resolution with which it had been defended, they felt convinced must be one of the keys of the position. And there is little doubt that they were as much surprised as disgusted to be received with a volley, from a totally different and not easily discernible point, which caused them to again retire precipitately, leaving nearly two-thirds of their number behind them.
Finding himself thus persistently foiled, the officer in command slightly altered his tactics; and, while instructing his artillery to persistently shell every bit of timber or other cover that could possibly afford concealment to the defenders, deployed his infantry into a column of open order and threw out a strong firing line, with instructions to them to advance, taking advantage of every bit of cover that they could find, and shoot at every puff of smoke that they could see. As on the occasion of the previous attack, many of the Spanish shells failed to burst; but, notwithstanding this, a few casualties now began to occur among Jack’s party of defenders, and he therefore decided that the moment had arrived for bringing his twelve-pounder into action. This gun, accordingly, which Jack had by this time got mounted on a cleverly-constructed and carefully-masked earth battery, now opened fire upon the enemy’s artillery; and as Singleton had personally laid the piece, and knew the exact range to practically an inch, he was lucky enough to dismount and put out of action one of the Spanish guns with his first shot, while his second swept away every one of the artillerymen from the gun next to it. His third and fourth shots did comparatively little damage; but his fifth shell struck one of the guns fair upon the muzzle, at the precise moment when it was being fired, with the result that both shells burst simultaneously, completely shattering the fore part of the gun, as far back as the trunnions, and scattering death and destruction broadcast among the rest of the artillerymen. But by this time the Spanish gunners had managed to locate the position of the weapon that was punishing them so fearfully, and from that moment they devoted their attention exclusively to it, with the result that shells began to drop thick and fast about Jack’s ears, smothering and half-blinding him with dust, and occasionally peppering him pretty smartly with the pebbles and fragments of stone that were mingled with the earth of which his battery was composed. Still he gallantly maintained the unequal fight, and actually succeeded in disabling four out of the six guns ere a splinter of shell struck him on the temple and knocked him senseless. When he recovered, he found that darkness was closing down; that he was in his own room and on his own bed, whither he had been brought by an ambulance party of his men; and that Mamá Faquita, poor Señorita Isolda’s nurse, had taken him in charge, cleaned and dressed his wound, and was looking after him generally. An intermittent crackle of rifle fire told him that the attack was still being pressed, but Faquita informed him that there had been very few serious casualties thus far, and that all was going well. The old woman would fain have kept him confined to his room; but Jack knew that with the darkness would come the real danger, and despite his nurse’s vehement protests he not only rose from his bed, but returned to the spot which his contingent of men were still defending.
Arrived there, he soon found that events had been happening during his absence. In the first place, it appeared that the remainder of the gun’s crew had continued to work the twelve-pounder, and, after firing away a perfectly ruinous quantity of ammunition, had actually succeeded in disabling one of the two remaining Spanish guns; soon after accomplishing which feat, the twelve-pounder itself had been dismounted and put out of action by a shell which had completely destroyed the carriage and at the same time had slain four of the gunners. Whereupon a little party of sharpshooters, remembering the tactics that Jack had adopted during the previous attack upon the estate, had exclusively devoted themselves to a repetition of them, by first of all exterminating the entire crew of the remaining Spanish gun, and then rendering it impossible for anyone else to approach the gun to work it. Meanwhile, the officer in command, finding it useless to try to do anything with his men, exposed as they were upon the open plain, had withdrawn them out of gunshot and gone into camp. It was clear that he proposed to wait until the darkness came to veil his movements.
Jack quite anticipated that the first thing which the Spaniards would attempt would be to reconnoitre the entire position, with the object of finding a way to get across the river; and he knew that there were only two points at which this feat of crossing was possible, namely, those which Carlos and he were defending. He therefore scribbled a little note to his friend, warning the latter what to guard against, and dispatched it by a negro messenger, whom he also instructed to afterwards call at the house and bring from thence a pair of binocular glasses which were to be found on a table in his (Jack’s) bedroom.
By the time that the messenger returned with the glasses it had grown intensely dark: for to the natural obscurity of night there was added the further obscuration caused by the smoke with which the atmosphere was laden; while, to still further intensify the blackness, a heavy thunderstorm was working up against the wind, the combined result being a darkness in which it was literally impossible to see one’s hand before one’s face. Jack was at first inclined to anathematise the darkness; but when at length he was enabled to fully realise the intensity of it he felt much more disposed to bless it, for, having moved about half a dozen paces away from his post, and experienced some difficulty in finding his way back, he began to comfort himself with the reflection that the enemy, utterly strange to the country as they were, could do nothing until light enough should come to at least enable them to see where to put their feet.
Yet Jack was mistaken in so supposing, for as the time went on he became aware of certain sounds out there on the plain which seemed to indicate pretty unmistakably that, despite the darkness, the Spaniards were busily employed. When the moaning and sighing of the night wind among the branches of the trees, the rustle of the bamboos, and the clash of the palm leaves subsided for an instant, allowing more distant sounds to reach his ears, he intermittently caught what seemed to be the sounds of picks and shovels at work at no very great distance; moreover, there were lights flitting about the distant camp, and much movement there, though what it portended Jack was quite unable to discover, even with the help of his night glasses. At length, however, the period of darkness came to an end, for sheet lightning began to flicker and quiver among the densely packed clouds low down on the western horizon, at first for an instant only and at comparatively long intervals, but soon increasing greatly in vividness and rapidity: and then the young Englishman perceived, to his disgust and alarm, that the Spanish soldiers had availed themselves of the obscurity not only to entrench a strong body of riflemen to right and left of their own end of the ruined bridge, but also to advance a long, light platform, or gangway, mounted on the wheels of one of the disabled field pieces, which they seemed to be preparing to throw across the gap in the bridge as soon as they could get sufficient light to enable them to run it into position; indeed, they were actually engaged in moving it forward at the very moment when Jack discovered its existence.