Bellarion slapped down the shoe on the table, adding precise information as to where he had found it and his reasons for supposing it so recently cast. 'And that's not all. For half a mile along that track there was a white trail in the grass, which investigation proved to be wheaten flour, dribbled from some sack that went that way perhaps last night.' Stoffel was aghast. He had not sufficient men, he confessed, to guard every yard of the line, and, after all, the nights could be very dark when there was no moon. 'I'll answer for it that you shall have more men to-night,' Bellarion promised him, and, without waiting to dine, rode back in haste to Pavone. He came there upon a council of war debating an assault upon Alessandria now that starvation must have enfeebled the besieged. In his present impatience, Facino could not even wait until his leg, which was beginning to mend, should be well again. Therefore he was delegating the command to Carmagnola, and considering with him, as well as with Koenigshofen and Giasone Trotta, the measures to be taken. Monna Beatrice was at her siesta above-stairs in the house's best room. Bellarion's news brought them vexation and dismay. Soon, however, Carmagnola was grandiosely waving these aside. 'It matters little now that we have decided upon assault.' 'It matters everything, I think,' said Bellarion, and so drew upon himself the haughty glare of Facino's magnificent lieutenant. Always, it seemed, must those two be at odds. 'Your decision rests upon the assumption that the garrison is weakened by starvation. My discovery alters that.' Facino was nodding slowly, gloomily, when Carmagnola, a reckless gambler in military matters, ready now to stake all upon the chance of distinction which his leader's illness afforded him, broke in assertively. 'We'll take the risk of that. You are now in haste, my lord, to finish here, and there is danger for you in delay.' 'More danger surely in precipitancy,' said Bellarion, and so put Carmagnola in a rage. 'God rid me of your presumption!' he cried. 'At every turn you intrude your green opinions upon seasoned men of war.' 'He was right at Travo,' came the guttural tones of Koenigshofen, 'and he may be right again.' 'And in any case,' added Trotta, who knew the fortifications of Alessandria better than any of them, 'if there is any doubt about the state of the garrison, it would be madness to attack the place. We might pay a heavy price to resolve that doubt.' 'Yet how else are we to resolve it?' Carmagnola demanded, seeing in delays the loss of his own opportunity. 'That,' said Bellarion quietly, 'is what you should be considering.' 'Considering?' Carmagnola would have added more, but Facino's suddenly raised hand arrested him. 'Considering, yes,' said the condottiero. 'The situation is changed by what Bellarion tells us, and it is for us to study it anew.'