5. 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!”
