“But the Emperor’s Italy,” answered Wogan; and at half-past nine that morning the carriage stopped in the public square of Trent.  As Wogan stepped onto the ground, he saw a cloud of dust at the opposite side of the square, and wrapped in that cloud men on horseback like soldiers in the smoke of battle; he heard, too, the sound of wheels.  The Prince of Baden had that instant driven away, and he had taken every procurable horse in the town.  Wogan’s own horses could go no further.  He came back to the door of the carriage.

“I must search through Trent,” said he, “on the mere chance of finding what will serve us.  Your Highness must wait in the inn;” and Clementina, muffling her face, said to him,—­

“I dare not.  My face is known in Trent, though this is the first time ever I saw it.  But many gentlemen from Trent came to the Innspruck carnival, and of these a good number were kind enough to offer me their hearts.  They were allowed to besiege me to their content.  I must needs remain in the shelter of the carriage.”

Wogan left Misset to stand sentinel, and hurried off upon his business.  He ran from stable to stable, from inn to inn.  The Prince of Baden had hired thirty-six horses; six more were nowhere to be found.  Wogan would be content with four; he ended in a prayer for two.  At each house the door was shut in his face.  Wogan was in despair; nowhere could delay be so dangerous as at Trent, where there were soldiers, and a Governor who would not hesitate to act without orders if he suspected the Princess Clementina was escaping through his town.  Two hours had passed in Wogan’s vain search,—­two hours of daylight, during which Clementina had sat in an unharnessed carriage in the market square.  Wogan ran back to the square, half expecting to find that she had been recognised and arrested.  As he reached the square, he saw that curious people were loitering about the carriage; as he pushed through them, he heard them questioning why travellers should on so hot a morning of spring sit muffled up in a close, dark carriage when they could take their ease beneath trees in the inn-garden.  One man laughed out at the Princess and the comical figure she made with her scarlet cloak drawn tight about her face.  Wogan himself had bought that cloak in Strasbourg to guard his Princess from the cold of the Brenner, and guessed what discomfort its ermine lining must now be costing her.  And this lout dared to laugh and make her, this incomparable woman, a butt for his ridicule!  Wogan took a step towards the fellow with his fists clenched, but thought the better of his impulse, and turning away ran to the palace of Prince Taxis.

This desperate course alone remained to him; he must have speech with the Prince-bishop himself.  At the palace, however, he was informed that the Prince was in bed with the gout.  Mr. Wogan, however, insisted.

“You will present my duties to the Prince; you will show him my passport; you will say that the Count of Cernes has business of the last importance in Italy, and begs permission, since the Prince of Baden has hired every post-horse in the town, to requisition half a dozen farm-horses from the fields.”