Visconti leaned forward in his chair in his excitement.
"Thousands?"
"The men from Magenta are come in, laden with plunder."
Visconti laughed.
"I said I would give them Lombardy to sack—and there are thousands of prisoners?"
The scene was the summer palace, that same night. Visconti sat at the head of a table in a room adjoining the one in which the tapestry was torn and the floor still sticky with blood. It was a small apartment, beautifully inlaid with mosaic, and now blazing with lights, and full of a fine company of officers and nobles.
"Thousands—men, women, and children—some men of note, too, my lord; the ransacking of palaces for miles——"
"And Novara?"
"Some beat the flames out still—they say half the place is saved."
"Let them plunder it!" cried Visconti. "Let them pick Novara bare! The palace was burned?"