'There goes your bridge, Francesco,' said Bellarion, and for the third time he laughed.
'Do you mock me, damn you!' Carmagnola raged at him, and then raised his voice to roar for arbalesters. Three or four of the men went off vociferously, at a run, to fetch them, whilst Valeria turned suddenly upon Bellarion, whose tall cloaked figure stood beside her.
'Why do you laugh?' Her voice, sharp with disdain, resentment, and suspicion, silenced all there that they might hear his answer.
'I am human, I suppose, and, therefore, not entirely without malice.'
'Is that all your reason? Is your malice so deep that you can laugh at an enemy advantage which may wreck the labour of days?' And then with increasing sharpness and increasing accusation: 'You knew!' she cried. 'You knew that the bridges would be destroyed to-night. Yourself, you said so. How did you know? How did you know?'
'What are you implying, madonna?' cried Carmagnola, aghast. For all his hostility towards Bellarion, he was very far from ready to believe that he played a double game.
'That I have no wits,' said Bellarion, quietly scornful.
And now the impetuous Belluno, smarting under his own particular misadventure and near escape, must needs cut in.
'Madonna is implying more than that. She is implying that you've sold us to Theodore of Montferrat.'
'Are you implying it, too, Belluno?' His tone had changed. There was now in his voice a note that the Princess had never heard, a note that made Belluno's blood run cold. 'Speak out, man! Though I give licence for innuendo to a lady, I require clear speech from every man. So let us have this thing quite plainly.'