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The semicircle was broken and the attackers had withdrawn to the shelter of the avenue. Haven and his companion moved back to the front room. A fat, smiling woman, with heavily braided brown hair and face redolent of soap and sunshine, was busy setting out upon a table a huge bowl of coffee, a loaf of bread, some butter, and a great dish of fried bacon. Haven hastened to complete his toilet.

"Sit down, Alexis," he invited.

The man looked at him in round-eyed surprise. He was already standing at attention behind the high-backed chair which he had placed at the table.

"American Master will eat," he said quietly.

A fantastic week! Haven was never able to take real count of it or to realise the swiftly passing days. He seemed to be always tumbling into bed or called to the table to eat enormous dishes of stew—stew composed of bear's meat, hare, rabbit and birds which he judged to be pheasants. There was a great stock of crude red wine always on hand, of which he drank sparingly, and a small stock of whisky and brandy, both of the best. The besiegers who were camped in the avenue appeared to have lost their enterprise. All the time Alexis was walking from room to room, making ceaseless perambulations of the house, continually on the watch for an attack which never came. Only once Haven heard the crack of his rifle, and, hastening to the window, saw a dark splotch which he knew to be the figure of a man lying at the extreme end of the avenue. Alexis beamed at him with all the joy of a contented child.