"The Estes may already have detached themselves from Della Scala, my lord," said the secretary. "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. In the tent behind him, Tomaso and a page polished his armor. For once Mastino was without it--yesterday he had donned it, and waited expectant for the answer to the challenge he could not believe Visconti could refuse. It was his fault to think the best of men, a fault that had cost him dear when he had trusted Count Conrad, a fault that had cost him the insult now of Visconti's answer to his message. "I have tried everything, and in everything I have been outwitted or betrayed. I am helpless, powerless. Will it last unto the end?" The thought burned across Mastino's heart like fire. "Would it last unto the end?" The dazzling sun blinded him, the waving of the green made him giddy; he lifted the flap of the tent and entered. After the glare the dark and gloom were welcome. The tent was large and bare, only the two boys in their quiet dresses and the bright armor strewn over the worn grass, only these and Ligozzi seated near the entrance watching Mastino with anxious eyes. Della Scala could not speak to him. He avoided his eyes, he had talked to him so often on this one theme. He could not meet his friend's eyes, so often humiliated with failure, with nothing but fresh disaster to speak of. In silence he paced up and down the tent, Ligozzi's eyes following him wistfully. He also did not care to speak. Mastino had left the entrance half open, and a great shaft of sunlight fell across the ground like a branch of yellow flowers. And as Della Scala passed it fell upon him, showing clearly his erect figure in its leathern doublet, his fine worn face and the unhappiness in his eyes, his hands locked behind his back.