'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?'