here was a knocking and a hammering at the window, and the
wrenching of the shutters. He gathered himself together for the next
assault. Suddenly he felt that every particle of strength had gone out
of him. He pulled himself up with a last effort. His legs would not
support him; he shivered and swayed. God, would they never get that
window open!

His senses were abnormally acute. Another sound attracted him: the
opening of the door, and a voice--Vanne Castine's--calling to the bear.

His heart seemed to give a leap, then slowly to roll over with a thud,
and he fell to the floor as the bear lunged forwards upon him.

A minute afterwards Vanne Castine was goading the savage beast through
the door and out to the hallway into the yard as Nic swung through the
open window into the room.

Castine's lantern stood in the middle of the floor, and between it and
the window lay Ferrol, the broken bayonet still clutched in his right
hand. Lavilette dropped on his knees beside him and felt his heart. It
was beating, but the shirt and the waistcoat were dripping with blood
where the bear had set its claws and teeth in the shoulder of its
victim.

An hour later Nic Lavilette stood outside the door of Ferrol's
bedroom in the Manor Casimbault, talking to the Regimental Surgeon, as
Christine, pale and wildeyed, came running towards them.

CHAPTER IX

"Is he dead? is he dead?" she asked distractedly. "I've just come from
the village. Why didn't you send for me? Tell me, is he dead? Oh, tell
me at once!"

She caught the Regimental Surgeon's arm. He looked down at her, over
his glasses, benignly, for she had always been a favourite of his, and
answered:

"Alive, alive, my dear. Bad rip in the shoulder--worn
out--weak--shattered--but good for a while yet--yes, yes--certainement!"

With a wayward impulse, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed
him on the cheek. The embrace disarranged his glasses and flushed his
face like a schoolgirl's, but his eyes were full of embarrassed delight.

"There, there," he said, "we'll take care of him--!" Then suddenly he
paused, for the real significance of her action dawned upon him.

"Dear me," he said in disturbed meditation; "dear me!"

She suddenly opened the bedroom door and went in, followed by Nic.
The Regimental Surgeon dropped his mouth and cheeks in his hand
reflectively, his eyes showing quaintly and quizzically above the
glasses and his fingers.

"Well, well! Well, w