With that clear prescience, which in all ages has been the gift of all great soldiers, he was able not merely to opine but quite definitely to state the course of action that Theodore would pursue. Because of this, on the Wednesday of that week, he moved Ugolino da Tenda and his condotta out of Casale, and transferred them bag and baggage--by night so that the movement might not be detected and reported to the enemy--to the woods about Trino, where they were ordered to encamp and to lie close until required. On the morning of Friday arrived at last in Casale the Marquis Gian Giacomo and his sister, escorted by the band of Montferrine exiles under Barbaresco and Casella, and the people turned out to welcome not only the Princes, but in many cases their own relatives and friends. Bellarion, with his captains and a guard of honour of fifty lances, received the Princes at the Lombard Gate, and escorted them to the palace where their apartments had been prepared. The acclamations of the people lining the streets brought tears to the eyes of the Princess and a flush to the cheeks of her brother, and there were tears in her eyes when she sought Bellarion in his room to abase herself in the admission of her grievous misjudgment and to sue pardon for it. 'Your letter, sir,' she told him, 'touched me more deeply than anything I can remember in all my life. Think me a fool if you must for what is past, but not an ingrate. My brother shall prove our gratitude so soon as ever it lies within his power.' 'Madonna, I ask no proofs of it, nor need them. To serve you has not been a means, but an end, as you shall see.' 'That vision at least does not lie in the future. I see now, and very clearly.' He smiled, a little wistfully, as he bowed to kiss her hand. 'You shall see more clearly still,' he promised her. That colloquy went no further. Stoffel broke in upon them to announce that his scouts had come galloping in from Vercelli with the news that the Lord Theodore had made a sally in force, shattering a way through Carmagnola's besiegers, and that he was advancing on Casale with a well-equipped army computed to be between four and five thousand strong. The news had already spread about the city, and was causing amongst the people the gravest apprehension and unrest. The prospect of a siege and of the subsequent vengeance of the Lord Theodore upon the city for having harboured his enemies filled them with dread. 'Send out trumpeters,' Bellarion ordered, 'and let it be proclaimed in every quarter that there will be no siege, and that the army is marching out at once to meet the Marquis Theodore beyond the Po.' CHAPTER XIV THE VANQUISHED Theodore's sally from Vercelli had been made at daybreak on that Friday morning. It had been shrewdly planned, for Theodore was no bungler, and, before he had brought more than half his men into action, Carmagnola, startled by the suddenness of the blow that fell upon him, was routed and in flight.