"We must step into the breach," continued the chairman. "The reactionary party is bent on compromising us and bringing disgrace on our patriotism by stirring up the dregs of the people to the most outrageous excesses. The false friends of liberty are inciting the mob to acts of violence and riot against the manufacturing and property-holding classes. Last night the custom-house was burnt and property destroyed in the outlying villages. To-day the rioters are expected to attack the factories and the religious houses within the city limits, and our duty will be to confront them and turn their misguided zeal into proper channels. We have not a moment to lose, but must hasten to meet this movement and rescue our flag from the dishonour with which our false friends are striving to stain it. Let us oppose our breasts to the flood and dam its course with our bodies." Poor Jenő! To offer his own person as a check to the fury of the mob, and to stand as a target between two fires--that of the rioters on one side, and of the soldiery on the other--was hardly to his liking. But he made haste to assure his friend Fritz of his hearty acquiescence in the plan proposed, and bade him go on ahead; he himself would run home and get his sword and pistols and then follow in a cab. Before Alfonsine he could not betray how little stomach he had for the undertaking. Gaining the street, he hailed the first empty cab he saw, and hired it for the day, directing the coachman to drive around whithersoever he chose, without halting, except at noon at some outlying inn, and late in the evening at his lodging. His friends and co-workers in the cause of freedom did not wait for him, but marshalled their forces and pushed forward to check the fury of mob violence that was now gaining fearful headway. The Granichstadt distillery was a mass of smoking ruins. The machinery had been wrecked, the brandy casks rolled into the street and their heads knocked in, whereupon their contents had rushed out over the pavement in a stream that soon caught fire. This blazing Phlegethon, pouring through the streets, had been the salvation of the St. Bridget Convent; for as long as the fiery stream barred the way in that direction, the mob could not offer the nunnery any violence. Yet the rioters were taking measures to overcome this obstacle, and were bringing sand, mud, ashes,--anything that would serve to make a road through the burning flood. At the entrance to the convent, however, a squadron of hussars had been posted early in the morning; its commander was Captain Richard Baradlay.