"How will you know where we shall be, sir?" Macwitty said.

"I have arranged with Colonel Herrara that when you halt you shall light two fires a short distance from each other. I will reply by lighting one, and the fires are then to be extinguished."

This being arranged, Terence went down and applied a match to the train, and then retired at a run. Three minutes later there was a heavy explosion, rocks flew high in the air, and when the smoke cleared away, a cheer from the hillside told that the explosion had been successful. Terence returned to the bridge; a considerable portion of the arch had been blown away, and putting fifty men to work, the gap was soon carried across the road and widened, so that there was a chasm twelve feet across. The parties who were to man the breastworks were now posted. Terence himself took the command here. The defenders consisted of a company of Bull's battalion.

Half an hour later a deep sound was heard, and as it grew louder the head of a column of cavalry was seen approaching. The whole of the force on the hillsides were hidden behind rocks or brushwood; not a head was shown above the breastworks. The cavalry, however, halted, and an officer with four men rode forward. When within fifty yards of the bridge a volley of twenty muskets flashed out from the work behind it. The officer and three men fell, the other galloped back to the main body. He had seen nothing beyond the fact that there was a breastwork across the road, and Franceschi, thinking that he had but a small force of peasants in front of him, ordered a squadron to charge, and clear the obstacle.