At the conclusion of his search Trafford heaved a deep sigh of relief, for they were all men, and what he had feared had not happened. Then, just as he was wondering what he could do to alleviate the sufferings of the stricken ones, he saw a party of friars, black-cloaked and hooded, approaching the scene with charitable intent. And so, leaving the task of mercy to better hands than his, he hastened in the direction from which distant sounds of shouting were audible. His ears led him towards the Cathedral Square, and as the noise of turbulence swelled louder and fiercer, and as his own sense of relief at the Princess's escape from danger made itself felt more consciously, a strange exaltation of the spirit took him. His heart sang at the joyous prospect of a disturbance beside which the finest college row on record would seem a small and trivial thing. He quickened his footsteps to a run, for his nerves were taut and tingling with the shrill joy of anarchy. Houses would be burnt instead of furniture, policemen would be assaulted with genuine ferocity, instead of the half-humorous roughness of his undergraduate days. The war-drum was sounding in his ears. The strange brain, that could pity human suffering with a superhuman sympathy, was kindled with the wild flames of primitive pugnacity. The strange heart, that could conceive an ethereal, passionless regard for a woman, was a fierce swirl of troubled waters. Trafford, Nervy Trafford, the fire-brand of Caius, was on the warpath. CHAPTER FOURTEEN MUSIC AND THE MOB When Trafford reached the Cathedral Square he found a vast number of people, a considerable amount of noise, but nothing very stirring in the way of action. The military and the mob seemed to be watching one another in an equipoise of mutual distrust. The King's Dragoons,--who had escorted Father Bernhardt to the Strafeburg,--were patrolling a space before the prison-house, while the portal itself was held by a company of Guides under Captain von Hügelweiler. On one side, indeed, a body of energetic firemen were engaged in pumping exceedingly cold water on to an ignited building, but though the crowd jeered and shouted, the brass-helmets proceeded in their duty, unheeding and unmolested. An air of palpable dejection seemed to oppress the throng, as though they had tried conclusions with the military and come off second best. The situation pleased the American not at all. His own enthusiasm was at boiling-point, and it fretted his high spirit to see a promising revolution fizzling out for want of leaders and concerted action. He edged his way into the outskirts of the crowd, in the dim hope of meeting some kindred spirit, perhaps, even if fortune favoured him, of chancing across the Princess.