"We will hope not. They will cling to the losing cause, and Mastino della Scala, the stainless knight, himself shall betray them!" smiled Visconti, with such cruel wickedness that Giannotto shrank.
"You stand so strong after your victories, my lord," he said, "you might well crush them all by force."
"Only I do not choose that way of doing it," replied the Duke, still smiling. "I will accomplish a bloodless victory. I will spend no treasure, no time, and no men on this conquest, but I will win from it, not alone Della Scala's towns, but his honor and his fame."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN UNEQUAL ODDS
For days the sun had risen and set in cloudless splendor, hanging through the long summer day in a sapphire sky, flooding the beautiful country with gold, making the air heavy with perfume and sense of summer.
Mastino della Scala, standing at the door of his tent, hardly saw the glory and the brightness, the splendor of the great chestnuts, all deep green and snowy white, the proud beauty of the heaped-up flowers, the vivid richness of the foliage; for his heart was too sore for the finest sun that ever shone to ease it.
He had waited long, and waited hopelessly.