At that moment Gregory was removing the meat from the spit. "What's the matter, Fillot? Be brave, old boy! We shall defend our supper. You are furnished with good strong jaws and fangs, I with weapons. Fear not. No one will venture to enter. So be still, Fillot! Lie down and keep quiet!" But so far from lying down and keeping quiet, the mastiff dropped his bone, stood up, and approaching the window where Yvon stood, barked louder still. "Oh, oh!" remarked the tavern-keeper depositing the meat in a large wooden platter on the table. "Fillot drops a bone to bark ... there must be someone outside." Yvon stepped quickly back, and from the dark that concealed him he saw Gregory seize his pike, throw the window wide open and leaning out call with a threatening voice: "Who is there? If any one is in search of death, he can find it here." The deed almost running ahead of the thought, Yvon raised his bow, adjusted an arrow and, invisible to Gregory, thanks to the darkness without, took straight aim at the tavern-keeper's breast. The arrow whizzed; Gregory emitted a cry followed by a prolonged groan; his head and bust fell over the window-sill, and his pike dropped on the snow-covered ground. Yvon quickly seized the weapon. It was done none too soon. The furious mastiff leaped out of the window over his dead master's shoulders and made a bound at the forester. A thrust of the pike nailed the faithful brute to the ground. Yvon had committed the murder with the ferocity of a famished wolf. He appeased his hunger. The dizziness that had assailed his head vanished, his reason returned, and he found himself alone in the tavern with a still large piece of meat beside him,--more than half of the original chunk. Feeling as if he just woke from a dream, Yvon looked around and felt frozen to the marrow. The light emitted by the hearth enabled him to see distinctly among the bloody remnants near where the mastiff had been gnawing his bone, a human hand and the trunk of a human arm. Horrified as he was, Yvon approached the bleeding members.