"Mastino della Scala! oh, why didst thou do this thing? Tell me thou repentest!" he cried. Mastino looked into the old man's wistful face. "Verona is no more, the Scaligeri are no more. Ride thee to the others, old man," he said. The standard-bearer wrung his hands. "I loved thee!" he pleaded. "Save thy soul and say thou dost repent!" Mastino's proud head was erect. "And do I live to save my soul? Get thee to the others, I do not repent." The old man rode away sorrowfully. Della Scala watched him disappear behind the rocks and trees. He was the last, and silence fell. "They are gone!" breathed Mastino. "They are gone!" His eyes fell to his shield; from rim to rim it was defaced and dented, and the ladder of the Scaligeri was beaten from its boss. The ground around was piled with arms, and Mastino put his hand up to his eyes, staggering. The ladder of the Scaligeri was beaten from his shield! "Some men remain, my lord," said Tomaso timidly, at last, with a boyish effort at some consolation. But Mastino winced; that they remained was a sorer shame even than the desertion of the others: for they were men, scum of camps, who fought solely for pay and plunder, and laughed at dishonor and admired treachery--they were the men who had stayed. "Isotta!" cried Mastino, with a sudden wild movement. "Why does she not come?--have I not waited long--have I not paid enough?" "I think I see her escort coming across the fields," said Tomaso timorously. Mastino turned and grasped his arm with a sudden change of manner. "Tomaso," he faltered, "methinks I am changed since last I saw her; perhaps she will--not know me--or will startle at me if she does. Tomaso, she is very fair and I have nothing to offer now--Tomaso, am I very changed?" He was changed, so changed the boy would scarce have known him; his soft brown hair was streaked with gray, his fine face drawn and white, his eyes, once soft and kind, unnaturally bright, and, like his mouth, strained and hard. Mastino laughed pitifully as he read the answer in Tomaso's frightened eyes. "She will not care--she will not care," he said. But his voice was unsteady, and he supported himself against the saddle of his horse. "The Duchess comes!" said Tomaso, and clutched Mastino's hand. Out of a little wood of delicate trees, in front of them, the cavalcade was winding: Visconti's soldiers, Veronese soldiers, and a white, curtained litter in the midst. Mastino's gaze flew to that, and to that only. "Oh, my heart's desire!" he murmured. "I do not repent!" And he forgot the ladder of the Scaligeri battered from his shield. The soldiers cantered up and lowered their halberds in a salute to the magnificent figure standing there alone, while the officer read in a high voice from the parchment, that stated that Isotta d'Este, Duchess of Verona, prisoner of war of Gian Galeazzo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, was returned to her husband in fulfillment of the league and treaty between them.