“Are these your quarters, general?” asked Roland with a smile, turning the soles of his boots to the blaze.
“Yes, colonel.”
“They are singularly guarded.”
Georges smiled in turn.
“Do you say that because you found the road open from La Roche-Bernard here?” he asked.
“I did not meet a soul.”
“That does not prove that the road was not guarded.”
“Unless by the owls, who seemed to fly from tree to tree, and accompanied me all the way, general. In that case, I withdraw my assertion.”
“Exactly,” replied Cadoudal. “Those owls were my sentinels, sentinels with good eyes, inasmuch as they have this advantage over the eyes of men, they can see in the dark.”
“It is not the less true that I was fortunate in having inquired my way at La Roche-Bernard; for I didn’t meet even a cat who could have told me where to find you.”