Ten to one! They needed to be. The place began to run with blood.
"Gian Visconti! Gian Visconti!"
Visconti rose by the wall again. "Kill him!" he gasped. "Kill him!" and cowered away. He was not sure if that face or that figure, struggling ever toward him, could be killed; that they were earthly, or that that was the voice of a man that, with no sound of the human left in it, called his name.
"Let them kill him!" screamed Visconti.
But de Lana did not move, he did not look round; neither did Visconti.
"Visconti! Visconti!" gasped the voice.... Ah!... There was a great scuffling of feet, the dragging of a heavy body, and Mastino, an inert mass upon the soldiers' arms, was forced back upon the balcony.
They let him fall there, and one heard him moan; but he was bleeding from twenty wounds. They left him and closed the door.
Visconti looked round fearfully.
"Is he gone?" he said.