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.