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recrossed the Neisse, and took to the mountains. On reaching them they sat down to deliberate, after which Trenck cut a stick to assist his friend in limping forward, when he himself was compelled to desist for a while from carrying him. They then resumed their journey, and wandered about for hours, up to the middle in snow, without being able to discover a path. When day broke, and they were expecting to find themselves on the frontier, they heard the town clock of Glatz, which painfully convinced them that they had gone astray, and were still in the midst of danger. They were, in fact, only seven miles from Glatz, and had still twice that distance to travel before they could get beyond the reach of their enemies.

They were now so nearly worn out with hunger, cold, and fatigue, that it seemed impossible to proceed much further without some assistance. Trenck resorted to the following stratagem to procure the necessary relief from the inhabitants of two houses, which were about three hundred paces from them on the hill-side. He was to act the part of a deserter, and Schell that of the officer who had arrested, wounded, and bound him, but whose horse had been killed, and his ankle put out in the scuffle, and who therefore wanted a cart for the conveyance of himself and his prisoner. As Schell had his

gorget and military scarf on, he was ready to perform his character, and Trenck fitted himself for his by cutting his finger, smearing the blood over his face, shirt, and clothes, and making his friend tie his hands loosely behind him. All this preparation, however, was thrown away, for the peasant to whom Schell applied knew his person, and had heard of his desertion with Trenck. But though detected, they obtained their purpose. While Schell kept the man in parley, Trenck went to the stable, from which he brought out two horses. Saddles were not to be had, but his entreaties prevailed on the peasant's daughter to procure him bridles; and thus mounted, they proceeded on their way.

Their appearance without saddles or hats-for they had lost their hats in leaping from the rampart-exposed them to great risk in the broad daylight. Nor, indeed, did they pass unknown. As they were approaching the Austrian confines, they were seen by Captain Zerbet, one of the officers who had been sent in pursuit. the officers were all so linked together in the ties of friendship, that, Zerbet fortunately being alone, the fugitives were safe. He called out to Trenck, 'Make to the left, brother, and you will see some lone houses; they are on the Austrian frontier; the hussars have gone straight forward;' and he then

But

moved on as if he had not seen them. Their last trial was the passing through a town which was garrisoned by a hundred and eight foot soldiers and twelve horse, for the express purpose of seizing deserters. Having traversed this dangerous spot unchallenged, they soon reached the Bohemian town of Braunau, and had nothing more to fear.

Thus, after fifteen months' confinement and repeated failures, did Trenck recover his liberty. 'Never in all my life,' says he, 'did I feel pleasure more exquisite than at this moment. My friend had risked a shameful death for me, and now, after having carried him at least twelve hours on my shoulders, I had saved both him and myself. We certainly should not have suffered any man to take us back again to Glatz alive. Yet this was but the first act of the tragedy of which I was doomed to be the hero, and the mournful incidents of which all arose out of, and depended on, each other. Could I have read the book of fate, and have seen the forty years' fearful afflictions that were to follow, I certainly should not have rejoiced at this my escape from Glatz.'

The fugitives were detained three weeks at Braunau by the lameness of Schell. During this time, Trenck deliberated as to the step which it would be most prudent for him to take. The idea of joining his

Austrian cousin at Vienna was abandoned at once, as he feared that such a measure would afford grounds for believing him to be a traitor. He had soon reason to be satisfied with his decision; he learned that his cousin was closely imprisoned and under prosecution. At length he determined upon travelling on foot, with Schell, through Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland, to the neighbourhood of Königsberg, for the purpose of seeing his mother, and obtaining from her some money; after doing which, he designed to enter into the Russian service. The journey was not less than between seven and eight hundred miles, and it was to be performed in the depth of winter. This plan, however, was afterwards a little modified: instead of proceeding direct to his mother's, he resolved first of all to solicit assistance from a married sister, who lived in Brandenburg, on a fine estate near Landsberg, on the river Watha. To reach her residence, the two fugitives were compelled to coast along the whole north-eastern frontier of Silesia; and as she resided on Prussian territory, though it was on the very verge of it, they had some cause of apprehension for their safety.

Many were the adventures into which this daring man and his companion plunged in effecting their purpose. At Czenstochow, a good Samaritan, who had given them food and

shelter, informed them that a carriage had arrived with an officer and soldiers sent to arrest them. All precautions were taken to prevent capture; but early on the second morning after leaving the town, they saw a carriage before them, which they knew to be that of their pursuers. The Prussian emissaries were standing round it, pretending it was fast in the snow, and they called out for help. Well aware that this was a stratagem to entrap them, Trenck and his companion went about thirty yards out of the road, and replied that they could not spare time to stop. Their enemies immediately drew out their pistols, and came upon them at full speed. Trenck turned round, and shot the foremost dead upon the spot. Schell was less fortunate; a ball wounded him severely in the neck. Another of the assailants fled from Trenck, who overtook him after a chase of three hundred yards, and cut him down with his sabre. While Trenck was thus occupied, Schell, disabled by a cut on the right hand, had fallen into the power of the two remaining Prussians, who were dragging him to the carriage. On seeing Trenck, however, coming back victorious, they relinquished their prey, and escaped over the fields. One of them never reached home, he having been mortally wounded. From one of the dead men the con

querors took a watch, a hat, and a musket. The approach of a coach and six compelled them to leave the other unrifled.

He was the officer who headed the party; and they afterwards learned that he had in his pocket a hundred and fifty ducats.

On

It was not until February, after wandering for six weeks, that Trenck, with Schell, arrived at his sister's house; and then, to his bitter disappointment and indignation, he was refused admission, and turned from the door. No resource now presented itself but to turn their course to the eastward, and proceed to Ebling, that Trenck might open a communication with his mother. his journey he was compelled to leave Schell, who was too weak and ill to advance farther, in the hands of a peasant woman, and to make his way alone to his destination. He was reduced to almost the last extremity when his weary feet entered Ebling; there, however, he was most hospitably welcomed by his old tutor, a captain in a Polish regiment, who wrote so powerful a letter to the mother of Trenck, that she hastened to embrace him; and through her liberality he was speedily placed in a position to which he had long been. a stranger.

| From Ebling Trenck journeyed to Vienna, picking up his friend Schell on the way, for whom he procured a com

mission in the regiment of Pala-bate, Trenck would have been

vacini, and gave him also a sum of money to enable him to join his regiment in Italy. Trenck soon left Vienna in disgust at the treatment he had received from his cousin,-who had attempted his assassination both secretly and by duelling, and entered the Russian service, in which he remained several years, successfully eluding various snares laid by his enemies to get him again under Prussian power. In 1754, however, his capture was finally effected, by the treachery of one in whom he placed entire confidence.

In the spring of that year his mother died, and he made a journey to Dantzic, that he might settle the family affairs with his brothers and sister. Having completed his family arrangements, and secured a passage for Riga in a Swedish vessel, he would shortly have been out of reach of his enemies, had he not been circumvented by the most infamous treachery. The traitor who betrayed him was an Austrian resident at Dantzic, a man named Abramson, on whom Trenck placed implicit reliance. The King of Prussia had required that Trenck should be given up to him, a demand with which the magistrates of the city hesitated to comply; and a correspondence took place upon the subject. The magistrates finally yielded. While the question was in de

on his voyage to Riga, had not the treacherous Abramson prevailed on him to remain a few days longer. On the last night of his intended stay, he had but just got into bed, when a loud knocking was heard at the door, which was followed by two of the city magistrates and twenty grenadiers bursting so suddenly into his room that he had not time to use his weapons. Resistance, indeed, would have been unavailing, for he had no one to aid him, his three servants having already been secured. He was conveyed to the city prison, where he remained twenty-four hours. Here he was visited by the traitor' Abramson, who hypocritically condoled with him, and promised to move heaven and earth for his deliverance. The deceiver played his part so well, that he induced the prisoner to place in his hands property to the amount of seven thousand florins, to prevent it, as he pretended, from being seized. On the following day he set out from Dantzic, guarded by an escort of dragoons. At Lauenberg, in Pomerania, he was handed over to the custody of thirty Prussian hussars, by whom he was conveyed to Berlin, and from thence to Magdeburg, where he was thrown into a dungeon.

'My dungeon,' he says, 'was in a casemate, the forepart of which, six feet wide and ten feet long, was divided by a party

eleven months, I felt from ravenous hunger. I could easily every day have devoured six pounds of bread; and every twenty-four hours, after having received and swallowed my small portion, I continued as hungry as before I began, yet must wait another twenty-four hours for a new morsel. How willingly would I have signed a bill of exchange for a thousand ducats, on my property at Vienna, only to have satiated my hunger on dry bread! For so extreme was it, that scarcely had I dropt into a sweet sleep, before I dreamed I was feasting at some table luxuriously loaded, where, eating like a glutton, the whole company were astonished to see me, while my imagination was heated by the sensation of famine. Awakened by the pains of hunger, the dishes vanished, and nothing remained but the reality of my distress; the cravings of nature were but inflamed, my tortures

wall. In the inner wall were two doors, and a third at the entrance of the casemate itself. The window in the seven feet thick wall was so situated, that though I had light, I could see neither heaven nor earth; I could only see the roof of the magazine; within and without this window were iron bars, and in the space between an iron grating, so close and so situated, by the rising of the walls, that it was impossible I should see any person without the prison, or that any person should see me. On the outside was a wooden palisade, six feet from the wall, by which the sentinels were prevented from conveying anything to me. I had a mattress, and a bedstead, but which was immoveably ironed to the floor, so that it was impossible I should drag it, and stand up to the window; beside the door was a small iron stove and a night-table, in like manner fixed to the floor. I was not yet put in irons, and my allow-prevented sleep, and looking ance was a pound and a half per day of ammunition bread, and a jug of water.

'From my youth I had always had a good appetite, but my bread was so mouldy I could scarcely at first eat the half of it. This was the consequence of Major Reiding's avarice, who endeavoured to profit even by this, so great was the number of unfortunate prisoners; therefore it is impossible I should describe to my readers the excess of tortures that, during

into futurity, the cruelty of my fate suffered, if possible, increase, from imagining that the promulgation of pangs like these was insupportable. God preserve every honest man from sufferings like mine! They were not to be endured by the villain most obdurate. Many have fasted three days, many have suffered want for a week or more, but certainly no one beside myself ever endured it in the same excess for eleven months. Some have supposed

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