The stranger's eyes flickered, as if the other's words touched a sore. "His Highness is growing impatient!" he returned, his tone somewhat warmer. "That is what he has sent me to say. He has waited long, and he bids me convey to you that if he is to wait longer he must have some security that you are likely to succeed in your design." "Or he will employ other means?" "Precisely. Had he followed my advice," the stranger continued with an air of lofty arrogance, "he would have done so long ago." "M. d'Albigny," Basterga answered, spreading out his hands with an ironical gesture, "would prefer to dig mines under the Tour du Pin near the College, and under the Porte Neuve! To smuggle fireworks into the Arsenal and the Town House; and then, on the eve of execution, to fail as utterly as he failed last time! More utterly than my plan can fail, for I shall not put Geneva on its guard--as he did! Nor set every enemy of the Grand Duke talking--as he did!" M. d'Albigny--for he it was--let drop an oath. "Are you doing anything at all?" he asked savagely, dropping the thin veil of irony that shrouded his temper. "That is the question. Are you moving?" "That will appear." "When? When, man? That is what his Highness wants to know. At present there is no appearance of anything." "No," Basterga replied with fine irony. "There is not. I know it. It is only when the fireworks are discovered and the mines opened and the engineers are flying for their lives--that there is really an appearance of something." "And that is the answer I am to carry to the Grand Duke?" d'Albigny retorted in a tone which betrayed how deeply he resented such taunts at the lips of his inferior. "That is all you have to tell him?" Basterga was silent awhile. When he spoke again, it was in a lower and more cautious tone. "No; you may tell his Highness this," he said, after glancing warily behind him. "You may tell him this. The longest night in the year is approaching. Not many weeks divide us from it. Let him give me until that night. Then let him bring his troops and ladders and the rest of it--the care whereof is your lordship's, not mine--to a part of the walls which I will indicate, and he shall find the guards withdrawn, and Geneva at his feet." "The longest night? But that is some weeks distant," d'Albigny answered in a grumbling tone. Still it was evident that he was impressed by the precision of the other's promise. "Was Rome built in a day? Or can Geneva be destroyed in a day?" Basterga retorted. "If I had my hand on it!" d'Albigny answered truculently, "the task would not take more than a day!" He was a Southern Frenchman and an ardent Catholic; an officer of high rank in the employ of Savoy; for the rest, proud, brave, and difficult. "Ay, but you have not your hand on it, M. d'Albigny!" Basterga retorted coolly. "Nor will you ever have your hand on it, without help from me." "And that is all you have to say?" "At present."