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."

"Pshaw, Monsieur!" exclaimed Laudonniere--"you talk illogically, you know nothing about it. Chess is one of those games----"

And he proceeded to expatiate upon the latent resources of the game, and how a good player might retrieve a bad situation in the last perilous extremity, by a lucky diversion.

"But there is no such extremity now," he continued to say, "and it is not improbable that we shall keep up the struggle till morning. The game cannot finish under an hour, let him do his best, even if he conquers in the end, which is very far from certain, though I confess he has some advantages."

"We shall see," was the reply, as Alphonse left the room, and returned in a few moments after. It was not observed by the parties, so intent were they on the game, that he now made his appearance in complete armor, nor did they hear the bustle in the adjoining apartment. Alphonse still held his watch in his grasp.

"The game is nearly finished. According to my notion, you have but two minutes for it."

"Two! how!" said Laudonniere, not lifting his head.

"But one!"

"There!" said Laudonniere, making the move that Marchand had anticipated. Marchand bent forward with extended finger to the white queen, when a shade of uneasiness might be traced by a nice observer in the countenance of D'Erlach. His lips were suddenly and closely compressed. The hand of the timepiece was upon the fatal minute. On a sudden, a hissing sound was heard, and, in the next instant, the house reeled and quivered as if torn from its foundation. A deep roar followed, as if the thunderbolt had just broke at their feet, and the whole was succeeded by a deafening ringing sound in all their ears.

"Jesus--mercy!" exclaimed Laudonniere--"The magazine!"

"Checkmate!" cried Marchand, as he set down the white queen in the final position which secured the game.

"Ay! it is checkmate to more games than one! Gentlemen, to arms, and follow me!" exclaimed Alphonse. "We are safe now!"