"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the walls which I will indicate, and he shall find the guards withdrawn,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