"It is half-past eleven, you say? I will go at once," said Villemain. "We will go with you," cried La Roquette and Stephen Le Genevois in the same breath. "No! no! not so!" said Le Genré. "You have each duties to perform. You must scatter yourselves as much as possible, so as to increase the alarm at the proper moment. There will be little danger, I grant you, with Laudonniere, and that imp of the devil, D'Erlach, out of the way; but it must be prepared for. Once show the rest that these are done for, and we shall do as we think proper." "What a fortunate thing for us is this game of chess. It disposes of the only persons we could not so easily have managed;" said Fourneaux. "Boxes them up, as one may say, so that they only need a mark upon them to be ready for shipment." "And yet, somehow, I could wish," said Le Genevois, "that Marchand were not among them. I like that fellow. He is so bold, so blunt, and plays his game just as if it were his religion." "I could wish to save the painter, if any," remarked La Roquette; "but at all events, we shall inherit his pictures." "Bah! let the devil take him and them together! Why bother about such stuff; what's his pictures of the country to us, when the country itself is our own, to keep or to quit just as it pleases us? We are wasting time. Where's Villemain?" "Here--ready!" "Depart, then," said Le Genré; "the sooner you light the match after you reach my quarters, the better. We shall be ready for the blast." "He is gone!" said Fourneaux. "Let us follow, and each to his task;" cried Le Genré. "Each of you take care of the flying timbers; find you covers as you may. My men are mustered behind the old granary. _Adieu, my friends_,--the time has come!" With these words, the company dispersed, each seeking his several position and duty. Let us adjourn our progress to the chamber of Laudonniere, where that meditative gamester still sits deliberate, with knotted brow, watching the movements of Marchand. CHAPTER V. The game was still unfinished. The repeater of Alphonse D'Erlach was in his hand, as he entered from his own chamber, and threw a hasty glance across the chess-board. There Laudonniere sate, seeing nothing but the pieces before him. He was in the brownest of studies. His thoughts were wholly with the game, which had the power of contracting his forehead with a more serious anxiety than possibly all the cares of his colony had done. His opponent was the very personification of well-satisfied indifference. He leaned back in his seat, smiling grimly, and with a wink, now and then, to those who watched and waited upon the movements of Laudonniere. Alphonse D'Erlach smiled also. The slightest shade of anxiety might be observed upon his brow, and his lips were more rigidly compressed than usual. He leaned quietly towards the board, and remarked indifferently-- "I see you are nearly at the close of your game."