For four hours and more, with intervals sufficient only to quench their thirst, the players had kept up their interminable accompaniment to dance and song.

It was clearly no place for hungry men.

Jacob pushed his way toward the inner room.
"Ho! Paulina!" he shouted, "two plates for men who have not eaten." "Have not eaten!" The startling statement quickened Paulina's slow movements almost to a run.

"Here, here," she said, "bring them to the window at the back." Another struggle and Jacob with his guests were receiving through the window two basins filled with luscious steaming stew.
As they turned away with their generous host, a man with a heavy black beard appeared at the window.
"Another hungry man, Paulina," he said quietly in the Galician tongue.
"Holy Virgin! Where have these hungry men been ?" cried Paulina, hurrying with another basin to the window.
The man fumbled and hesitated as he took the dish.
"I have been far away," he said, speaking now in the Russian tongue, in a low and tense voice.
Paulina started.

The man caught her by the wrist.
"Quiet!" he said.