purred the
Lieutenant. "There is this memorial, my lord," he said, and tapped the
document, his eyes upon my father.

"Since your excellency wishes the matter to be disposed of out of hand,
it can, I think, be done," he said, and he looked again at Cosimo.

"You have said that this memorial is false, because the witnesses whose
names are here cannot be admitted to testify."

Cosimo braced himself for a last effort. "Do you defy the Pope?" he
thundered.

"If necessary," was the answer. "I have done so all my life."

Cosimo turned to Gonzaga. "It is not I who have branded this memorial
false," he said, "but the Holy Father himself."

"The Emperor," said my father, "may opine that in this matter the Holy
Father has been deluded by liars. There are other witnesses. There is
myself, for one. This memorial contains nothing but what was imparted
to me by the Lord of Pagliano on his death-bed, in the presence of his
confessor."

"We cannot admit the confessor," Gonzaga thrust in.

"Give me leave, your excellency. It was not in his quality as confessor
that Fra Gervasio heard the dying man depone. Cavalcanti's confession
followed upon that. And there was in addition present the seneschal
of Pagliano who is present here. Sufficient to establish this memorial
alike before the Imperial and the Pontifical Courts.

"And I swear to God, as I stand here in His sight," he continued in a
ringing voice, "that every word there set down is as spoken by Ettore
Cavalcanti, Lord of Pagliano, some hours before he died; and so
will those others swear. And I charge your excellency, as Caesar's
vicegerent, to accept that memorial as an indictment of that caitiff
Cosimo d'Anguissola, who lent himself to so foul and sacrilegious a
deed--for it involved the defilement of the Sacrament of Marriage."

"In that you lie!" screamed Cosimo, crimson now with rage, the veins at
his throat and brow swelling like ropes.

A silence followed. My father turned to Falcone, and held out his hand.
Falcone sprang to give him a heavy iron gauntlet. Holding this by the
fingers, my father took a step towards Cosimo, and he was smiling, very
calm again after his late furious mood.

"Be it so," he said. "Since you say that I lie, I do here challenge you
to prove it upon my body."

And he crashed the iron glove straight into Cosimo's face so that the
skin was broken, and blood flowed about the mouth, leaving the lower
half of the visage crimson, the upper