The soldiers had dismounted, but the captain kept his seat. The horses champed, threw up their heads, and clanked their trappings; but as he talked with the men told off to hold them Alberic's swaggering tones were plainly audible.

Suddenly a shout arose.

'They have found the horses,' said Francisco.

Alberic flung himself from the saddle. They could hear that. Torchlight suddenly flared across the opening, high up in the wall, and more faintly through the broken roof. There was a sudden blow upon the door Francisco's giant frame was barricading.

'Who is within here?' cried a harsh voice. 'Open!' and there came another blow.

But it scarce had fallen when Francisco, so swiftly no one could foresee his intention, stepped aside and let the door fly open as if the blow had forced it. On the threshold stood Alberic da Salluzzo, resplendent in jewelled armour and waving plumes. In the smoking torchlight, badly held, it seemed as if the place he looked into were empty.

'Who harbours here?' he said, and stepped across the threshold. 'Bring thy torch here, Guilliamo.'

But Francisco was swift. The door was shut before the soldier heard, and Francisco set once more his giant frame against it. In an instant, by the breathing of the men near him, da Salluzzo knew he had been trapped. He turned to escape, he was about to call but a hand of iron closed round his throat. In the dim light the place seemed full of threatening forms.

He was trapped indeed! Half-strangled, he ground his teeth at his folly more than his plight, and struggled to get his dagger, but his hands were caught.

In vain he struggled; he was a powerful man, but he who held him was more powerful. In vain he tried to cry aloud to those without; his voice was gripped within his throat. Slowly but irresistibly he was forced back against the farther wall, with a strength he thought could not be man's.

In a moment more, the soldiers without, nonplussed, but only for an instant, by their captain's disappearance, broke in the door. They could scarce believe their senses. Da Salluzzo lay dead upon the floor, and over him there towered a tall figure. They saw naught else. These men had fought with Alberic at the Sacking of Verona; they knew that form, they had seen that face before. By their torches' smoky glare it seemed unearthly, and the eyes to flame, the form to fill the hut.

'Come and fetch your captain!' cried Francisco. But at the voice, at the look of his wild face as he advanced, they dropped their torches and scrambled back across the threshold panic-struck.

'Mastino della Scala!' they cried, 'Mastino della Scala!' And dropping the lights they fled in terror.

 

Chapter 10. — The Turquoise Gloves

Della Scala is alive!

The news flew like fire around Milan, rousing even the indifferent to some interest. The rumours then were true? Della Scala was alive? In the market-place, in the streets, in the houses it was discussed—the name of della Scala was on every lip. But in the Visconti palace it was not spoken. Silent, sombre as ever, the castle frowned over its beautiful gardens, and only by the companies of horse that spurred out of its side gates to fortify still more strongly the nine cities once held by della Scala and now the Visconti's, only by this could it be told how much the news meant to the man within.

Giannotto, walking softly through the corridors, paused and looked out into the garden.

Something had caught his keen eye, and he watched, hidden by the curtain of purple silk.

A sea of flowers lay spread beneath him, while beyond a more formal part of the grounds, crowned with white terraces and set with cypress-trees, rose clear against the sapphire sky. To the right lay Isotta d'Este's prison, the western tower, a massive building of huge strength, encircled on three sides with a moat, and guarded by soldiers.

Giannotto's eyes glanced from the silver banner that hung above, lifeless in the summer air, to the soldiers at their posts below.

There was an entrance to the tower near to the palace, guarded but little used, half-hidden by myrtle that had filled up the dried moat and climbed up the wall; and, as Giannotto still watched, the figure he had seen enter there, hooded and cloaked, passed out again hurriedly, sped between the sentries, who studiously took no heed, and was soon lost to sight along the winding paths.

The movement was quick, the figure gone almost as soon as noticed; a casual observer would have taken little heed, but Giannotto's eyes were trained, and he knew the figure for whose it was: Valentine Visconti.

'She must have bribed high,' he thought. 'High indeed. Why should she visit the prison of Isotta d'Este?' He followed her figure across the garden with curious, suspicious thoughts.

'She is daring,' he mused, 'and foolish. Did she think no one's eyes could be on her, when Visconti has spies who are to watch her every movement?'

He turned back into the corridor, twisting the ends of his scarlet robe between his fingers, and smiling to himself.

The secretary was in a better humour than his master; that Mastino della Scala should live to vex Visconti, that he should have snatched von Schulembourg, one of his dearest victims, back from underneath his very hand, pleased Giannotto, as did anything that annoyed Visconti, save when his master's rage was such that his secretary felt its working. The Duke he knew to be alone.