To the man-at-arms who acted as gaoler, he held out his pinioned wrists. 'How am I to eat and drink?' he asked.
'You'll make shift as best you can.'
He made shift, and by using his two hands as one contrived to eat and to drink. After that he spent some time at the sill, patiently drawing his wrists backwards and forwards along the edge of it, with long rests between whiles to restore the blood which had flowed out of upheld arms. It was wearying toil, and kept him fully engaged for some hours.
Towards dusk he set up a shouting which at last brought the guard into his prison.
'You're in haste to die, my lord,' the fellow insolently mocked him. 'But quiet you. The stranglers are bidden for daybreak.'
'And I am to perish like a dog?' Bellarion furiously asked him. With pinioned wrists and ankles he sat there by his table. 'Am I never to have a priest to shrive me?'
'Oh! Ah! A priest?' The fellow went out. He went in quest of Carmagnola. But Carmagnola was absent, marshalling his men against a threatened attempt by Stoffel and the Swiss to rescue Bellarion. The captains were away about the same business, and there remained only the Princess and her brother.
'Messer Bellarion is asking for a priest,' he told them.
'Has none been sent to him?' cried Gian Giacomo, scandalised.
'He'd not be sent until an hour before the stranglers.'