“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.”
“Indeed!” said Laudonniere, with some sharpness in his accents,—“and pray Monsieur Alphonse, how do you see that?”
“You will finish by twelve,” was the reply. “I see that it now lacks but a few minutes of that hour.”