The Squire’s dispositions to meet the threatening attack were as good as could be devised, having regard to the short breathing-space allowed him, and to the nature of his situation. A large rambling building like the Towers could not be held for any length of time by a slender garrison of five. There were half-a-dozen points at which it could be assaulted simultaneously—the front door facing the village, the back door facing the sea, the stable-yard, the offices, the rooms and passages in the ruined portion. But the principal tower, flanking the porch, was in passable repair, and it was there that the Squire had determined to make a final stand. It contained two or three rooms approached by a stone staircase springing from near the front door. Mrs. Trevanion was sent by her husband to the topmost room. He posted himself, with Reuben and Penwarden, in the room over the porch, where the window-shutters had been loopholed, no doubt by some former owner of the Towers, though the Squire had never given the matter a thought. Dick he sent to the back of the house, instructing him to call Sam to his help if he saw fit. "Neither for fire nor battle does the bell summon aid," he said bitterly. "Sam may as well save his energies." His final instruction was that if the Frenchmen broke in, as seemed only too probable, they should all retreat to the tower, the entrance to which from the staircase was protected by a heavy, iron-studded oaken door. Believing that the invaders’ object was loot and not slaughter, he scarcely anticipated personal damage, but supposed that the garrison would be allowed to remain in the tower unmolested while the rest of the house was sacked. Delarousse, panting a little from his exertions, was as much alive to the risks and perils of his enterprise as the Squire could be. Success or failure hung upon minutes. But he had not earned his reputation as a daring and resourceful privateer undeservedly. His object was a very simple one. It was not bloodshed or rapine, but merely the seizure of the man who had grievously wronged him—John Trevanion, or, as he had known him in Roscoff, Robinson. Doubledick, to feed his private malice, had declared that John Trevanion lived in the Towers—the largest house upon the cliff. The Frenchman’s little knowledge of the country had been gained solely by observation from the sea, and by the faint glimpses he had obtained on that dark and rainy night when he evaded the pursuit of the dragoons. He remembered that the house at whose door he had seen his enemy was nearer the top of the hill than the Towers; but he had no reason to doubt Doubledick’s statement that the latter was now the residence of John Trevanion, and no one had told him that there were other Trevanions who had no dealings with John. It was therefore his whole-hearted belief that the Towers sheltered his bitterest foe which inspired his attack upon a man who had never injured him.