"No, I have a use for you here and I must stay here myself. Things are going very badly. But I shall go down there early in January. I shall be at Èbrecourt on the morning of the tenth of January. The business must be finished forty-eight hours after. And it shall be finished, that I swear to you." He was again silent while the spy laughed loudly. Paul had stooped, so as to bring his eyes to the level of his revolver. It would be criminal to hesitate now. To kill the major no longer meant revenging himself and slaying his father's murderer: it meant preventing a further crime and saving Élisabeth. He had to act, whatever the consequences of his act might be. He made up his mind. "Are you ready?" he whispered to Bernard. "Yes. I am waiting for you to give the signal." He took aim coldly, waiting for the propitious moment, and was about to pull the trigger, when Karl said, in German: "I say, _Excellenz_, do you know what's being prepared for the ferryman's house?" "What?" "An attack, just that. A hundred volunteers from the African companies are on their way through the marshes now. The assault will be delivered at dawn. You have only just time to let them know at headquarters and to find out what precautions they intend to take." The major simply said: "They are taken." "What's that you say, _Excellenz_?" "I say, that they are taken. I had word from another quarter; and, as they attach great value to the ferryman's house, I telephoned to the officer in command of the post that we would send him three hundred men at five o'clock in the morning. The African volunteers will be caught in a trap. Not one of them will come back alive." The major gave a little laugh of satisfaction and turned up the collar of his cloak as he added: "Besides, to make doubly sure, I shall go and spend the night there . . . especially as I am beginning to wonder whether the officer commanding the post did not chance to send some men here with instructions to take the papers off Rosenthal, whom he knew to be dead." "But . . ." "That'll do. Have Rosenthal seen to and let's be off." "Am I to go with you, _Excellenz_?" "No, there's no need. One of the boats will take me up the canal. The house is not forty minutes from here." In answer to the spy's call, three soldiers came down and hoisted the dead man's body to the trap-door overhead. Karl and the major both remained where they were, at the foot of the ladder, while Karl turned the light of the lantern, which he had taken down from the wall, towards the trap-door. Bernard whispered: "Shall we fire now?" "No," said Paul. "But . . ." "I forbid you." When the operation was over, the major said to Karl: "Give me a good light and see that the ladder doesn't slip." He went up and disappeared from sight. "All right," he said. "Hurry." The spy climbed the ladder in his turn. Their footsteps were heard overhead. The steps moved in the direction of the canal and there was not a sound.