Then his glazing eyes fell on the brilliant blue gloves he wore, and he sat upright with a scream of rage.
"The gloves! the gloves!" And with his remaining strength he tried to tear them off. "O fool! A Visconti!... I might—have known——"
Frantically he pulled at them, while Visconti, now moving almost at a walk, looked dreamily ahead at the fast nearing city.
"Fiend!" cried Carrara wildly. "Fiend!"
And he lurched forward, falling heavily onto the road, where he lay, convulsed, the turquoise gloves still on his hands.
Gian Maria drew rein now, and looked down at him, his face no longer indifferent, as he looked down into the white and contorted countenance of the dying man.
"'Whom did you murder here, Visconti?'" he quoted. "'Whoever it be, do not fear him now, since he is dead'; and I answered, did I not, that I feared neither him nor you? And now, Carrara, thou mayst tell him what I said, he whom I murdered in that room we passed."
Giacomo, writhing on the ground, looked up at him with hate equal to his own, and feebly still tried to pull off the turquoise gloves.
Visconti, leaning low from the saddle, gripped his sword and thrust it through his belt.
"I shall not ride into Milan swordless," he said; "thou might'st have spared thy caution, Carrara: I shall ride into Milan with thy army, thy towns, and thy sword; and I have bought them—with a pair of turquoise gloves."