The Princess regarded him with astonishment and a recrudescence of anger. "They are trying to take my friend," she expostulated in low tones. "They will probably murder him. It is essential to my success that he escapes their clutches." "He'll escape all right," said Trafford, with the unreasoning confidence of the born optimist; but the Princess stamped with annoyance at his folly. Suddenly sounds of a struggle were heard from the direction of the lighted window on the second floor--sounds of shifting feet and reeling furniture, but no cry of human throat or crack of firearm. "I must investigate this," said Trafford, but before he could take action there was a great crash of riven glass, and a dark form fell rolling and clutching from the shattered window into the street. The fall was considerable, but the snow broke its force, and the man stirred where he lay. "Is it he?" asked the Princess breathlessly. "No, thank God!" she answered herself as the man raised a bearded face from the snow, and groaned in agony. "Look out!" said Trafford, for there were sounds of men descending a staircase at breakneck speed, and as he spoke a dark form issued from the doorway. As it did so, one of the two men who were waiting without, threw a cloak over the head and arms of the emerging man. Simultaneously the other raised a weapon and struck. A half-second later and another man issued from the house, and leaped like a wild beast on the back of the enmeshed and stricken man. This was too much for Trafford's tingling nerves. Leaving the Princess where she stood in the archway, he darted across the road with the speed of a football end going down the field under a punt to tackle the opposing fullback. His passage was rendered noiseless by the soft carpet of thick snow, and he arrived unseen and unheard at the scene of the mêlée. The man with the dagger was just about to strike again. He had been making desperate efforts to do so for several moments, but his would-be victim was struggling like a trapped tiger, and the heaving, writhing mass of humanity, wherein aggressors and quarry were inextricably entangled, offered no safe mark for the assassin's steel. However, just as his point was raised aloft with desperate intent, Trafford anticipated his action with a swinging blow on the side of the head. The man fell, dazed and stunned, against the wall. Trafford, with his fighting lust now thoroughly inflamed, turned his instant attention to the other aggressors. Now, however, he had no unprepared victim for his vigorous arm. A vile-looking ruffian, with low brow and matted hair, had extricated himself from the involved struggle, and was feeling for a broad knife that lay ready to hand in his leather belt.