He who was once the great Lord of Verona and a proud and stainless knight stood without Brescia, awaiting the price of his dishonour. It was midday, of a swooning heat, and great purple clouds lay heavily about the horizon, with a sombreness that foretold a storm.

Mastino della Scala stood alone on a group of rocks scattered upon the plain, that sent his tall figure up against the deep sky, erect and motionless.

All that was left of his army was behind him in the chestnut wood: half had been betrayed, half had been cut to pieces rather than yield. Some few — the lowest dregs of his camp, the men who cared not where or when they drew their swords, so they had food and drink — remained, to try their luck with him, now no better than one of themselves. Through all the miseries of that weary week his gallant band of Veronese, some two hundred, had stood by him, watching the others ambushed, attacked, surrounded, and destroyed, hearing of town after town that fell, and smiling scornfully at talk of treachery, accepting without question Mastino’s silence. Was he not the son of Can’ Gran’ della Scala, and his name one with honour, the proudest name in Lombardy, the proudest badge in Italy, the ladder of the Scaligeri!

So had they stayed with scorn at thoughts of betrayal whispered among the baser residue, until that morning when he had summoned their leaders and told them, with a strange calmness, he had sold them, Verona and Veronese, for his wife’s release — sold Lombardy for Isotta d’Este.

Then leaving them, standing silent and bewildered, della Scala mounted to these rocks to await his wife — alone. His eyes were on the fields before him; he hardly noticed a slight figure that crept timidly to his feet — Tomaso.

‘My lord’— the boy’s voice faltered, and he kept his eyes turned away —‘the Duchess hath started safely; I saw her mount her litter with glad eyes; they bade me hasten forward and tell thee so.’

‘Ah!’

Della Scala stepped on to a higher rock and shaded his eyes with his hand. He was in armour, and bore on his arm his shield, across the boss, the ladder, the ladder on which the Scaligeri had climbed so high, and from which they had fallen — to this!

Tomaso crouched beside him, silent and dismayed. He had clung to della Scala in spite of his father’s loss (that he could not understand), and in spite of what was happening now, that began to make plain that and many things.

Tomaso glanced up at the sombre figure standing alone above him. Mastino wore no mantle, and the golden circlet was gone from his helmet. Mastino della Scala was no longer Duke of Verona.

No pages or footmen followed; save for this one boy, he was alone, carrying his own shield, holding his own horse, despised of those he once had thought of as beneath even his scorn.

A gallop of horses broke the summer quiet, and spears gleamed through the ruddy chestnuts behind them. The Veronese, thought Tomaso, the Veronese soldiers.

Della Scala neither turned his head nor moved, but stood there with his shield hanging on his arm, his sword hand listless by his side.

Tomaso was right. The riders were a band of Veronese. At a full gallop they flew out of the shade into the sun, in face and movement, fury.

Tomaso shrank back at sight of them, roused from their bewilderment, riding full tilt toward Mastino in a silence that was more deadly than shouts of hate; and Mastino turned at last and faced them with wild eyes.

The foremost man was swiftly on them, his furious face brought close to theirs. As he swept up he drew the dagger at his waist and hurled it full on Mastino’s shield.

‘That from me!’ he cried, and rose in his stirrups with a shout. ‘That and my scorn, della Scala!’

But Mastino was prepared; he stood erect and did not flinch. Another rode by; bending his face close to him, he spat at him; both shattered their daggers on to his shield, those daggers mounted with his arms that they carried as his soldiers. One tore from his neck the collar Mastino had hung there, and flung it at his feet with curses.

‘Traitor, where is Ligozzi?’ cried one, hurling an imprecation, and della Scala took a step back with a cry wrung from him; but the man was gone, and the face of another Veronese was looking into his with utter loathing. Without a pause they dashed by, each hurling his dagger, and many some order or sign of, Mastino’s friendship, full upon that shield that hung on della Scala’s arm.

‘That to cheer thee in thy shame!’

‘That to make a necklet for Isotta d’Este!’

‘This from me, who would have died for thee!’

The taunts were bitter and savage, and hurled in a fury of scorn and hate; but Mastino della Scala, save for that one movement, neither flinched nor stepped out of the way of the onward rush, but bore for a long hour of that summer day that wild ride past of the Veronese and the batter on his shield of the daggers that disdained to slay him.

‘Stop! in the name of Heaven, stop!’ shrieked Tomaso, and held his hands against his ears.

They took no heed of him, in their mad fury did not even see the boy. But to Tomaso it was most terrible that della Scala made no movement to defend himself; his calm face was awful.

‘Stop Tomaso shrieked again. ‘Stop!’

How many more, how many more! How many times more that rattle as the daggers struck the shield and then fell to lie bright in the sun? How many more furious faces, how many more bitter curses? How long would della Scala stand there turned to stone? Tomaso crouched and hid his eyes. At last they came to an end. The last rode by, the standard-bearer, tearing the standard to rags with furious hands.

‘Verona is ............