Giannotto closed his eyes and leaned back. To his fevered senses the scene seemed unreal, and the two torn banners resting against the wall to add a touch of the horrible to the brilliancy and the triumph.
From Mantua and Modena—how much that meant! How many lives had been flung aside in wild agony and despair to make way for those banners to stand there!
"Mantua resisted desperately," Arezzo was saying. "But Della Scala had left them so weakened."
"Della Scala!" cried Visconti. "I remember, he is in yonder garden; see he be brought in, da Ribera; out of all Lombardy I can spare him a tomb!"
The soldier left the room, and the talk went on with little heed of the interruption; Visconti still busy with the ramparts of Turin and the defenses of Modena, de Lana disputing the route to Vercelli; but the secretary was not interested. His head pained him, and he fixed his eyes on Visconti's triumphant face with a strange fascination. It seemed a long time before da Ribera returned, and when he did, at something in his face, a sudden silence fell.
"What is it?" asked Visconti, and, half-reeling, Giannotto leaned forward to listen for the answer.
Da Ribera did not at once reply.
"What is it?" repeated the Duke angrily.
"We have found Della Scala," returned da Ribera, finding voice, "but not only his body."