"He may do anything," cried Mastino; "he hath Milan and Rome and the Empire to back him. Still do I hold many towns. Verona is strongly fortified; I lie between him and Mantua. He cannot fall on those." "He has Padua, Bassano, Mestre, and Chioggia," said Ligozzi. Mastino struck his hand against the tent impatiently. "I know!" he cried. "I know the odds are not equal! When I seek to comfort myself, why wilt thou remind me, Ligozzi? What can I do? Nothing but what I say: march on Milan. And mark me, Ligozzi; whatever befall, if all desert me to a man, if d'Este fail me, I will not leave the walls of Milan--alive, without my wife." "I will not desert thee," said Ligozzi simply. "I will never desert thee, my lord." "I never doubted thee," returned Mastino impulsively. "Ah, forgive me if I am harsh, for in truth my heart is very heavy; when I think of her--in Visconti's power--it is terrible! terrible!" He shuddered and put his hand on Ligozzi's shoulder, speaking eagerly. "Such things cannot happen, Ligozzi, can they? It cannot be I shall never see her again! God cannot mean that--though He take all from me, though He humiliate me before my enemy, He cannot mean that! No! Visconti is not leagued with Heaven: it cannot be! it cannot be!" "No," said Ligozzi; "even Visconti would not dare to harm the Duchess. Ye will see her again, my lord." Della Scala turned away to the other end of the tent; it was plain to him Ligozzi's heart was not in the comfort that he gave, that he thought with the others that they would do well to fall back from Milan, join the Estes, and hold the towns they had. "But they do not understand," said Mastino in his heart. "I will never go back alive--without my wife." CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT THE VIPER The Duke of Milan had sent a secret embassy to Mastino della Scala, lying crushed outside Milan--a secret embassy he had long been meditating. The master-stroke of his policy should be the Duke of Verona's ruin, and his complete triumph. And the moment of his sending was well chosen. The two days of which Mastino spoke had passed. The answer from d'Este at Novara had been unfavorable. His plans, he said, were to march back to Modena and Ferrara, protecting that part of Lombardy, held now by Julia Gonzaga's men alone, against Visconti; he would wait for his army to come up; he would wait for Mastino, but not long; his duty lay inside Modena and Ferrara, not outside the hopeless walls of Milan. And Mastino had set his teeth, and taken his answer in silence. That night there was a wild attack on the walls of Milan, so sudden, so fierce, that it almost seemed as if the ramparts must fall before the furious onslaught.