'Attend to me!' the officer barked at him. 'This man charges you with theft.' 'With theft!' Fra Sulpizio paused and sighed. 'It shall not move me to the sin of anger, brother. It is too foolish: a thing for laughter. What need have I to steal, when under the protection of Saint Francis I have but to ask for the little that I need? What use to me is worldly gear? But what does he say I stole?' It was the peasant who answered him. 'Thirty florins, a gold chain, and a silver cross from a chest in the room where you rested.' Bellarion remembered how the friar had sought to go slinking off alone from the peasant homestead, and how fearfully he had looked behind him as they trudged along the road until overtaken by the muleteer. And by the muleteer it would be, he thought, that they had now been tracked. The officer at the gate would have told the peasant of how the friar and his young companion in greed had ridden in; then the peasant would have sought the muleteer, and the rest was clear: as clear as it was to him that his companion was a thieving rogue, and that his own five ducats were somewhere about that scoundrel's person. In future, he swore, he would be guided by his own keen instincts and the evidence of his senses only, and never again allow a preconception to befool him. Meanwhile, the friar was answering: 'So that not only am I charged with stealing; but I have returned evil for good; I have abused charity. It is a heavy charge, my brother, and very rashly brought.' There was a murmur of sympathy from the staring, listening company, amongst whom many lawless ones were, by the very instinct of their kind, ready to range themselves against any who stood for law. The friar opened his arms, wide and invitingly: 'Let me not depart from my vows of humility in the heat of my own defence. I will say nothing. Do you, sir, make search upon me for the gear which this man says I have stolen, though all his evidence is that it chanced to be in a room in which for a little while I rested.' 'To accuse a priest!' said some one in a tone of indignation, and a murmur arose at once in sympathy. It moved the young officer to mirth. He half swung on his heel so as to confront those mutterers. 'A priest!' he jeered. Then, his keen eyes flashed once more upon the friar. 'When did you last say Mass?' Before that simple question Fra Sulpizio seemed to lose some of his assurance. Without even giving him time to answer, the officer fired another question. 'What is your name?' 'My name?' The friar was looking at him from eyes that seemed to have grown beadier than ever in that white, pitted face. 'I'll not expose myself to ribald unbelief. You shall have written proof of my name. Behold.' And from his gown he fetched a parchment, which he thrust under the soldier's nose. The officer conned it a moment, then his eyes went over the edge of it back to the face of the man that held it. 'How can I read it upside down?'