You will see that you could not reach the end of it
in time to save yourself."

It was his turn to change colour under the shadow of his beaver. "Have
you trapped me?" he asked between his teeth.

"If you had anything of the Anguissola besides the name," I answered,
"you would know me incapable of such a thing. It is because I know that
of the Anguissola you have nothing but the name, that you are a craven,
a dastard and a dog, that I have taken my precautions."

"Is it your conception of valour to insult a man whom you hold as if
bound hand and foot against striking you as you deserve?"

I smiled sweetly into that white, scowling face.

"Throw down your gauntlet upon this bridge, Cosimo, if you deem yourself
affronted, if you think that I have lied; and most joyfully will I take
it up and give you the trial by battle of your seeking."

For an instant I almost thought that he would take me at my word, as
most fervently I hoped. But he restrained himself.

"Read!" he bade me again, with a fierce gesture. And accounting him well
warned by now, I read with confidence.

It was a papal brief ordering me under pain of excommunication and death
to make surrender to Cosimo d'Anguissola of the Castle of Pagliano which
I traitorously held, and of the person of his wife, Madonna Bianca.

"This document is not exact," said I. "I do not hold this castle
traitorously. It is an Imperial fief, and I hold it in the Emperor's
name."

He smiled. "Persist if you are weary of life," he said. "Surrender now,
and you are free to depart and go wheresoever you list. Continue in
your offence, and the consequences shall daunt you ere all is done. This
Imperial fief belongs to me, and it is for me, who am Lord of Pagliano
by virtue of my marriage and the late lord's death, to hold it for the
Emperor.

"And you are not to doubt that when this brief is laid before the
Emperor's Lieutenant at Milan, he will move instantly against you to
cast you out and to invest me in those rights which are mine by God's
law and man's alike."

My answer may, at first, have seemed hardly to the point. I held out the
brief to him.

"To seek the Emperor's Lieutenant you need not go as far as Milan. You
will find him in Piacenza."

He looked at me, as if he did not understand. "How?" he asked.

I explained. "While you have been cooling your heels in the
ante-chambers of the Vatican to obtain this endorsement of your infamy,
the world hereabouts has mo