"Who harbors here?" he said, and stepped across the threshold. "Bring thy torch here, Gilliamo."
But Francisco was swift. The door was shut before the soldier heard, and Francisco set once more his giant frame against it. In an instant, by the breathing of the men near him, da Salluzzo knew he had been trapped. He turned to escape, he was about to call, but a hand of iron closed round his throat. In the dim light the place seemed full of threatening forms.
He was trapped indeed! Half-strangling, he ground his teeth at his folly more than his plight, and struggled to get his dagger, but his hands were caught.
In vain he struggled; he was a powerful man, but he who held him was more powerful. In vain he tried to cry aloud to those without; his voice was gripped within his throat. Slowly but irresistibly he was forced back against the farther wall, with a strength he thought could not be man's.
In a moment more, the soldiers without, nonplussed, but only for an instant, by their captain's disappearance, broke in the door. They could scarce believe their senses. Da Salluzzo lay dead upon the floor, and over him there towered a tall figure. They saw naught else. These men had fought with Alberic at the sacking of Verona; they knew that form, they had seen that face before. By their torches' smoky glare it seemed unearthly, and the eyes to flame, the form to fill the hut.
"Come and fetch thy captain!" cried Francisco. But at the voice, at the look of his wild face as he advanced, they dropped their torches and scrambled back across the threshold panic-struck.
"Mastino della Scala!" they cried, "Mastino della Scala!" and dropping the lights they fled in terror.
The news flew like fire around Milan, rousing even the indifferent to some interest. The rumors then were true? Delia Scala was alive? In the market-place, in the streets, in the houses it was discussed--the name of Della Scala was on every lip. But in the Visconti palace it was not spoken. Silent, somber as ever, the castle frowned over its beautiful gardens, and, only by the companies of horse that spurred out of its side gates to fortify still more strongly the nine cities once held by Della Scala and now the Visconti's, only by this could it be told how much the news meant to the man within.