None answered him, and in the pause that followed the men-at-arms summoned by Belluno clanked in, and at a sign from Carmagnola closed about Bellarion. There were four of them. One of the captains deprived him of his dagger, the only weapon upon him, and flung it on the table. At last Bellarion roused himself to some show of real heat. 'Oh, but this is madness! What do you intend by me?' 'That is to be deliberated. But be under no delusive hope, Bellarion.' 'You are to decide my fate? You?' From Carmagnola, he looked at the others. He had paled a little; but amazement still rode above fear. Stoffel, unable longer to contain himself, turned furiously upon Carmagnola. 'You rash, vainglorious fool. If Bellarion is to be tried there is none under the Duke's magnificence before whom he may be arraigned.' 'He has been arraigned already before us here. His guilt is clear, and he has said nothing to dispel a single hair of it. There remains only to decide his sentence.' 'This is no proper arraignment. There has been no trial, nor have you power to hold one,' Stoffel insisted. 'You are wrong, captain. There are military laws ...' 'I say this is no trial. If Bellarion is to be tried, you'll send him before the Duke.' 'And at the same time,' put in Bellarion, 'you'll send your single witness; this clown who brought that letter. Your refusal to produce him here before me now in itself shows the malice by which you're moved.' Carmagnola flushed under that charge, and scowlingly considered the prisoner. 'If the form of trial you've received does not content you, and since you charge me with personal feeling, there is another I am ready to afford.' He drew himself up, and flung back his handsome head. 'Trial by battle, Lord Prince.' Over Bellarion's white face a sneer was spread. 'And what shall it prove if you ride me down? Shall it prove more than that you have the heavier weight of brawn, that you are more practised in the lists and have the stronger thews? Does it need trial by battle to prove that?' 'God will defend the right,' said Carmagnola. 'Will he so?' Bellarion laughed. 'I am glad to have your word for it. But you forget that the right to challenge lies with me, the accused. In your blundering stupidity you overlook essentials always. Your very dulness acquits you of hypocrisy. Shall I exercise that right upon the person in whose service I am carrying arms, upon the body of the Marquis Gian Giacomo of Montferrat?' The frail boy named started, and looked up with dilating eyes. His sister cried out in very real alarm. But Carmagnola covered them with his answer. 'I am your accuser, sir: not he.' 'You are his deputy, no more,' Bellarion answered, and now the boy came to his feet, white and tense. 'He is in the right,' he announced. 'I cannot refuse him.' Smiling, Bellarion looked at Carmagnola, confused and awkward.