Bénédicité went out.
“Did you see any one on your way here?” asked Cadoudal.
“Not one.”
“I asked for three hundred men in half an hour, and they will be here in that time. I might have asked for five hundred, a thousand, two thousand, and they would have responded as promptly.”
“But,” said Roland, “you have, in number at least, a limit you cannot exceed.”
“Do you want to know my effective? It is easily told, I won’t tell you myself, for you wouldn’t believe me. Wait. I will have some one tell you.”
He opened the door and called out: “Branche-d’Or!”
Two seconds later Branche-d’Or appeared.
“This is my major-general,” said Cadoudal, laughing. “He fulfils the same functions for me that General Berthier does for the First Consul. Branche-d’Or—”
“General.”