“Oh, you must be joking. I can’t be so very far off the road! I must be somewhere between the Mort de Gauthier and the Grand Cap! Call it eight miles to the fort ... and you will be putting it high!”
The fist that was clenched about the cane rose and fell in a gesture of ironic helplessness:
“Well, call it eight miles, Monsieur. How could you do eight miles in a dark like this?”
Again he swept the spotlight around that chaotic devil’s dump of boulders. To tell the truth, I cringed with involuntary terror, though I did manage to pull myself together again:
“Do them I must, in any event. The dispatch of which I have the honor to be bearer is of the first importance. You will be so kind, Sir, as to suggest the direction of the battery—and I will be infinitely obliged.”
The point of the cane swung upward from the ground toward the steepest of the precipices, the upper brink of which projected out into the chasm in a menacing overhang.
“It’s off in that direction,” said the old man.
I bowed with some ceremony, determined to waste no further time:
“Thank you, and good night, Sir!”