Part 28

But Visconti turned aside to the back of the palace, and descended the steps that led to the garden. It was quiet here, all sounds subdued and distant.

The balustrade of the steps and terrace was smothered in roses, white, pink, and crimson, past their full summer pride, and many lying crushed across the marble, while tangled trails of leaves and creepers lay torn from the stone where they had clung.

Visconti noticed it, and looked with a smile at da Ribera, who in his turn smiled also and passed a light word on at which the laugh was general.

They were great nobles, princes some of them, yet not one dared to look grave when Visconti smiled, or was not eager to fawn upon his notice.

At the foot of the steps the grass was crushed and blood-stained, and from beside the oleanders and olives, drooping in the sun, a little procession of men was engaged lifting something from the ground.

Visconti stopped.

"Della Scala," said de Lana. "They are moving him, according to your orders, my lord."

Visconti stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"Bid them set him down again." And he stepped softly down the steps.

Giannotto looked at his smiling face with a cold, strange horror, and glanced round to see if it were not in the others' faces too, but he did not see it.

The soldiers, at de Lana's peremptory order, stopped, and laid the burden they were lifting at Visconti's feet.

Mastino della Scala!

Visconti repeated the name and grasped his dagger.

Mastino della Scala, the man who had checked him, scorned him, foiled him all his life, the proudest race, the most stainless name in Lombardy, ended here and in this!

Visconti stepped close and looked down into his enemy's uncovered face.

"He was not beautiful, this Della Scala," he said.

Then he glanced up and round with a wordless, an unutterable exultation. All he had asked had been given him and more! He, Visconti, Duke of Milan, could ask for nothing more than this moment gave him—a perfect triumph.

Da Ribera peered forward curiously. "He is torn to rags," he said. "He must have fought like a madman—"

"He was mad," said Visconti.

"And the lady?" said de Lana, suddenly, to Visconti. "Where is she, my lord?"

Visconti, lacing his gold gloves, paused a moment, and answered over his shoulder, lightly:

"She seems to fill thy thoughts, de Lana!"

"Only, can it be the Duchess?" said da Ribera. "I have never seen Isotta d'Este, so cannot tell. I left her where I found her—on the grass, beneath those laurels. But that it is a lady—"

He pointed as he spoke to a distant bush, round which tall lilies grew.

"It is the Duchess!" cried another.

"How should she be dead?" asked de Lana, and his glance again sought the secretary's.

"How indeed?" said Visconti, with a curious smile. "And yet there are enough ways of dying abroad. I will see for myself—so that if it indeed be Isotta d'Este she may have fitting honor—"

The group moved forward. The advance of the army was already marching past the walls of the garden, past the gate through which Mastino had ridden; the pennons from their lances showed above the yellow jasmine that covered the stonework, and the drums beat loud as Visconti and his company reached the laurel clump and stood looking down at the silent figure in the crushed and bedraggled white and purple.

"Isotta d'Este!" said Visconti, under his breath, and yet with an unmoved face, that showed no surprise.

"Dead!" said de Lana, after a pause, and looked at him.

Visconti laughed softly, and turned with shining eyes.

"Did I not tell you Della Scala was mad—did we not see it for ourselves last night?" he said.

"So it is the Duchess?" whispered da Ribera. "She was very beautiful, they say."

She lay where they had drawn her from her shelter underneath the laurels, her dress clinging close, her head turned away. Mastino had wrapped her round carefully, with a clumsy tenderness; wrapped her veil about her face, and laid his own cloak over her to shield her from the night and rain. And his last whisper was for her—an appeal to some one's humanity to see that Visconti should not look upon his victim's face, should not defile her with his touch.

It rushed on Giannotto with the certainty of conviction—he had caught only the ghostly whisper, but he was sure in this moment of the sense of it; and the music, the colors and sunshine, and splendor and pomp of triumph, and Gian Visconti's cold, mocking face began to dance before Giannotto's vision like figures and fancies of a dream. He heard Visconti speak to Arezzo, saw Arezzo stoop and lift the mantle, and he moved back a step and put his hand to his breast.

"Isotta d'Este!" said Visconti, turning to the others, and pointing down to the dead uncovered face. "Now what was she to lose everything for?"

"His wife," said de Lana, and turned his head away.

"Yes, my friend—do not forget it: Della Scala's wife!" and Visconti touched him on the shoulder warningly.

The group turned to go, and the secretary saw it with a feeling of relief, when by some sudden impulse Visconti stepped back, and stood looking down once at the poor white face.

His own showed neither fear, nor remorse, nor wonder, only triumph, and the secretary felt the blood rise slowly from his heart toward his brain, and he drew the stiletto half from his breast.

"Donna mia," said Visconti, speaking to her with a smile, "we must not part so coldly, you and I—I will give you a fair tomb in Verona—in red Verona, donna mia."

He dropped on one knee beside her, holding the laurels back and the lilies that hung above her head.

"This as an earnest," he said, and bent over her and kissed her—kissed the cold cheek of Mastino's wife.

The group watching stirred among themselves; no smiling faces now: each eye averted, but still no one spoke.

And Visconti stooped and kissed her again, where the dark hair lay about her forehead.

Then something gave in Giannotto's brain: a voice seemed to thunder in his ears—"Judgment!" His hand flew from his breast and up and down upon the kneeling figure, while he cried out terribly with a white, inspired face, and Visconti fell forward, stabbed through the back.

"Treachery," cried da Ribera, scarcely seeing who had done it. "The Duke is stabbed!"

Visconti clutched at the flowers and fell without a word.

"Killed!" screamed de Lana. "Now God is just!"

"Killed—the Duke is killed!"

Guido d'Arezzo bent over him with a white face, but della Torre stamped in a passion of excitement and dragged at his shoulder.

"Killed!—come away—there are ourselves to think of—come away!"

Arezzo sprang to his feet.

"To Milan!" cried della Torre. "He leaves no heirs."

Visconti was still breathing: he struggled, and Giannotto pushed to his side and stood above him, bursting into wild words.

"I did it—Visconti!—I did it—do you hear—do you hear! I knew, and I did it!"

"Keep away!" yelled della Torre, and pulled him back.

Then he dropped to his knee and tore the signet-ring from the hand of the dying man.

"To Milan!" he cried, springing up. "Haste! to Milan!"

"To Milan!" echoed Arezzo; "to Milan and the army—"

"Back—all of you!" said de Lana, and he raised Visconti. "He is not dead—"

"He is past life. To Milan!"

The garden was one wild, yelling confusion; the news was spreading like fire; each thought and acted for himself; and Giannotto, instrument of vengeance, whimpered on his knees.

The rush to the gate came by so close, the flying feet almost touched Visconti's face; and as della Torre passed, he struck his glove across him.

De Lana lifted Visconti from the grass, but with a last effort he struggled from him and dropped back.

"Milan!" he sobbed.

De Lana bent down eagerly to catch a muttered prayer, but there was nothing more.

"Milan!"

The voices and shouts rose to a deafening pitch of confusion, the very air seemed fevered with excitement; a flock of startled doves flew past in panic, a rainbow of color; flew so low and so close to de Lana as to blind him for a moment with the whirr of their wings, and in that moment was a terrible cry.

They passed, beating the lilies down.

"My lord!" cried de Lana. "My lord!"

But even as he spoke, he knew Gian Visconti was dead.

THE END