The mob still lingered about, but in smaller numbers; the most violent had departed to pursue their work of butchery elsewhere.
Many of the disloyal National Guards, who found it easier work to insult a dead man than to combat a living one, swaggered about, looking fierce and truculent. Some decently-dressed citizens regarded the murdered count, it appeared to me, with pity and sorrow; even to some of the insurgents remorse had come with terrible swiftness.
The students and men of the slums had gone--the former to fight, the latter most likely to plunder. More peaceable people helped to fill up the gap thus caused.
I left the room and descended the stairs slowly, thinking of Stephen. Where was he? Had he been killed by that terrible crush in the narrow street? Perhaps he was still there, hurt and unable to move. I must go and find out.
On the lower part of the staircase I met numbers of citizens coming to view the scene of the struggle.
I stood aside to let them pass, and they, recognizing my nationality, saluted me with the cry of "Long live Hungary!" I thought of the dead man outside, and the blood surged to my face.
In the courtyard there was room to move freely, and, anxious on my brother's account, I was hurrying away, when the sound of a girl's voice coming from the left caused me to stop.
A low, angry growl from a section of the onlookers told me something was wrong, and I ran to the spot.
A young girl, evidently of high birth, stood facing a group of Nationals. Her head was uncovered, and her hair hung down her back in a thick, wavy, chestnut-coloured mass. She had a beautiful face, sweet and fresh as the morning; her features were regular and refined; her dark-blue eyes were of wonderful depth and expression.
She was slightly, almost delicately framed, and little more than a child in years; but the inherited pride of centuries burned in her face, and she confronted the citizen soldiers fearlessly.