His dirty fingers closed over her ermine cloak. The brooch held it. He was actually tearing it from her shoulders, despite her struggles and screams, when I felled him with a sweeping blow from the flat of my sword. He rose with execrations, called to his mates, and some of them might rashly have assailed even a ritter with his weapon ready, when the sight of Adolf and two other burly Regensteiners at my back made them one and all slink away. “With your pardon, Reverend Abbess,” I said, “I will extricate you from this outrageous tumult.” And then I shouted, during a lull, to the rioters, “Hearken, good folk, broken heads and foul oaths do not make honest Christians! Your furious zeal does Dr. Luther little honor! I am sure these worthy priests are sorry they ever lit the bonfire. Now let them go, and do all things peaceably.” The less heated contestants dropped their arms instantly, the more angry glowered a moment, then were fain to imitate. The priests and halberdiers improved the chance to flee to the Rathaus and bar the door. The original champion of Luther drew the charred papers out of the fire and held them up reverently before all the people. Then he began to chant Hutten’s bitter poem on the commandment to burn Luther’s books. “Here, Lord, Thy holy words they burn; Thy teachings pure they from them spurn; Here are Thy precepts thrust aside, And license given to vice and pride.” At the end of every couplet the folk answered with a yell. A procession began to organize to course the town, and I knew there would be more rioting and an anxious hour for His Grace the prince-bishop ere the day was over. My business was to conduct the abbess to a place of safety. “Reverend lady,” I began again, “this is likely to be a blustering day on the streets, but my inn is near and I have stout fellows to guard us. Suffer me therefore--” I drew off my cap in salutation, and simultaneously she thrust back her displaced coif. For the first time our eyes met fairly. I was addressing Abbess Theckla of Quedlinburg.... The blood went up to her pale cheeks; I am sure I flushed also. Fortunately the existing tumult was sufficient excuse for scanty conversation. “Here is no pleasant spot for exchanging civilities,” I remarked, as coolly as I might; “at the inn we can discourse more comfortably.” She twitched an instant at her bridle, but the mob began to howl again, whilst their self-appointed leader read forth from the charred sheets one of Luther’s especially vehement denunciations of Popery. Pride capitulated before obvious prudence.