Part 12
“While labouring, I placed the stones and bricks upon my bedstead; and had they taken the precaution to come at any other time of the week, the stated Wednesday excepted, I had inevitably been discovered; but as no such ill accident befell me, in six months my Herculean labours gave me a prospect of success.
“Means were to be found to remove the rubbish from my prison, all of which, in so thick a wall, it was impossible to replace. Mortar and stone could not be removed. I therefore took the earth, scattered it about my chamber, and ground it under my feet the whole day, till I had reduced it to dust, which I strewed in the aperture of my window, making use of the loosened table to stand upon. I tied splinters from my bedstead together, with the ravelled yarn of an old stocking, and to this I affixed a tuft of my hair. I worked a large hole under the middle grating, which could not be seen by any one standing on the ground, and through this I pushed my dust with the tool I had prepared in the outer window, then waiting till the wind rose, during the night I brushed it away. It was blown off, and no appearance remained on the outside.
“By this single expedient, I rid myself of at least three hundredweight of earth, and thus made room to continue my labours; yet this being still insufficient, I had recourse to many other artifices, among them that of kneading up the earth into little balls which, and when the sentinel’s back was turned, I blew through a paper tube, out of the window. Into the empty space I put my mortar and stones, and worked on successfully.
“I cannot, however, describe my difficulties after having penetrated about two feet into the hewn stone. My tools were the irons I had dug out, which fastened my bedstead and table. A compassionate soldier also gave me an old iron ramrod, and a soldier’s sheath knife, which did me excellent service, more especially the latter, as I shall presently more fully show. With the knife I cut splinters from my bedstead, which aided me to pick the mortar from the interstices of the stone; yet the labour of penetrating through this seven-feet wall was incredible. The building was ancient, and the mortar occasionally quite petrified, so that the whole stone was obliged to be reduced to dust. After continuing my work unremittingly for six months, I at length approached the accomplishment of my hopes, as I knew by coming to the facing of brick which alone remained between me and the adjoining casemate.
“Meantime, I found opportunity to speak to some of the sentinels, among whom was an old grenadier, called Gefhardt, whom I here name because he displayed qualities of the greatest and most noble kind. From him I learned the precise situation of my prison, and every circumstance that might best conduce to my escape.
“Nothing was wanting but money to buy a boat, so crossing the Elbe with Gefhardt, I might take refuge in Saxony. By Gefhardt’s means I became acquainted with a kind-hearted girl, a Jewess, and a native of Dessau, Esther Heymannin by name, whose father had been ten years in prison. This good, compassionate maiden, whom I had never seen, won over two grenadiers, who gave her an opportunity of speaking to me every time they stood sentinel. By tying my splinters together, I made a stick long enough to reach beyond the palisadoes that were before my window, and thus obtained paper, another knife, and a file.
“I now wrote to my sister, the wife of the before-mentioned only son of General Waldow, described my awful situation, and entreated her to remit three hundred rix-dollars to the Jewess, hoping by this means I might escape from my prison. I then wrote another affecting letter to Count Puebla, the Austrian ambassador at Berlin, in which was enclosed a draft for a thousand florins on my effects at Vienna, desiring him to remit these to the Jewess, having promised her that sum as a reward for her fidelity. She was to bring the three hundred rix-dollars my sister should send me, and take measures with the grenadiers to facilitate my flight, which nothing seemed able to prevent; I having the power either to break into the casemate, or, aided by the grenadiers and the Jewess, to cut the locks from the doors and that way escape my dungeon. The letters were open, I being obliged to roll them round the stick to convey them to Esther.
“The faithful girl diligently proceeded to Berlin, where she arrived safely, and immediately spoke to Count Puebla. The Count gave her the kindest reception, received the letter, with the letter of exchange, and bade her go and speak to Weingarten, the secretary of the embassy, and act entirely as he should direct. She was received by Weingarten in the most friendly manner, and he, by his questions, drew from her the whole secret, our intended plan of flight, and the names of the two grenadiers who were to aid us. She told him also that she had a letter for my sister, which she must carry to Hammer, near Custrin.
“He asked to see this letter, read it, told her to proceed on her journey, gave her two ducats to bear her expenses, and ordered her to come to him on her return; adding that during this interval he would endeavour to obtain the thousand florins for my draft, and would then give her further instructions.
“Esther cheerfully departed for Hammer, where my sister, then a widow, and no longer, as in 1746, in dread of her husband, immediately gave her a letter to me, with three hundred rix-dollars, exhorting her to exert every possible means to obtain my deliverance. Having prospered so far, Esther hastened back to Berlin, with the letter from my sister, and told Weingarten all that passed, whom she allowed to read the letter. He told her the two thousand florins from Vienna were not yet come, but gave her twelve ducats, bade her hasten back to Magdeburg, to carry me all this good news, and then return to Berlin, where he would pay her the thousand florins. Esther came to Magdeburg, went immediately to the citadel, and most luckily met the wife of one of the grenadiers, who told her that her husband and his comrade had been taken and put in irons the day before. Esther’s quickness of perception told her that we had been betrayed: she, therefore, instantly again began her travels, and happily came safe to Dessau.”
One of the grenadiers was hung, the other cruelly tortured. Trenck’s sister was condemned to pay a heavy fine, and the expenses of building a new cell for her brother. Trenck did not know at first what had happened, but he was soon informed of it by Gefhardt, who told him that his new prison would be finished in a month. Frederic, who had come to Magdebourg to hold a review, himself designed the chains for the limbs of his victim. Meanwhile Trenck was still in hopes of regaining his liberty. As yet nothing had been discovered of his subterranean operations. His preparations were at length finished, and he was getting ready to fly during the night, when suddenly the doors were opened; he was seized, and bound hand and foot; a bandage was placed over his eyes, and he was dragged away to his new cell. His feelings are best described in his own words:--
“The bandage was taken from my eyes. The dungeon was lighted by a few torches. Great heaven! what were my feelings when I beheld the floor covered with chains, a fire pan, and two grim men standing with their smiths’ hammers.
“These engines of despotism went to work at once: enormous chains were fixed to my ancles at one end, and at the other to a ring which was fixed in the wall. This ring was three feet from the ground, and only allowed me to move about two or three feet to the right and left. They next riveted another huge iron ring of a hand’s breadth round my naked body, to which hung a chain fixed into an iron bar as thick as a man’s arm. This bar was two feet in length, and at each end of it was a handcuff. The iron collar round my neck was not added till the year 1756.
“No soul bade me good-night. All retired in dreadful silence, and I heard the horrible grating of four doors that were successively locked and bolted upon me.
“Thus does man act by his fellow, knowing him to be innocent, in blind obedience to the commands of another man.
“O God! Thou alone knowest how my heart, void as it was of guilt, beat at this moment. There I sat, destitute, alone, in thick darkness, upon the bare earth, with a weight of fetters insupportable to nature, thanking Thee that these cruel men had not discovered my knife by which my miseries might yet find an end. Death is a last certain refuge that can indeed bid defiance to the rage of tyranny. What shall I say. How shall I make the reader feel as I then felt? How describe my despondency, and yet account for that latent impulse that withheld my hand on this fatal, this miserable night?
“The misery I foresaw was not of short duration. I had heard of the wars that were lately broken out between Austria and Prussia. To patiently wait their termination amid sufferings and wretchedness such as mine, appeared impossible, and freedom even then was doubtful. Sad experience had I had of Vienna, and well I knew that those who had despoiled me of my property would most anxiously endeavour to prevent my return. Such were my meditations, such my night thoughts. Day at length returned, but where was its splendour? I beheld it not, yet its glimmering obscurity was sufficient to show me my dungeon.
“In breadth, the cell was about eight feet; in length, ten. Near me stood a table; in a corner was a seat four bricks broad, on which I might sit and recline against the wall opposite to the ring to which I was fastened; the light was admitted through a semicircular aperture one foot high, and two in diameter. This aperture ascended to the centre of the wall, which was six feet thick, and at this central part was a close iron grating from which outward the aperture descended, having its two extremities again closely secured by strong iron bars. My dungeon was built in the ditch of the fortification, and the aperture by which the light entered was so covered by the wall of the rampart, that instead of finding immediate passage, the light only gained admission by reflection. This, considering the smallness of the aperture and the impediments of grating and iron bars, made the obscurity very great, yet my eyes in time became so accustomed to this gloom, that I could see a mouse run. In winter, however, when the sun did not shine into the ditch, it was dense night with me. Between the bars and the grating was a glass window, most curiously formed, with a small central casement, which might be opened to admit the air. The name of Trenck was built in the wall in red brick, and under my feet was a tombstone with the name of Trenck also cut on it, and carved with a death’s head. The doors to my dungeon were double, of oak, two inches thick; without, there was an open space in front of the cell, in which was a window. And this space was likewise shut in by double doors. The ditch in which this dreadful den was built was inclosed on both sides by palisadoes twelve feet high, the key of the gate of which was intrusted to the officer of the guard, it being the king’s intention to prevent all possibility of speech or communication with the sentinel. The only motion I had the power to make was that of jumping upward, or swinging my arms to procure myself warmth. When more accustomed to the fetters, I became capable of moving from side to side about four feet, but this pained my shin-bones.
“The cell had been finished with lime and plaster but eleven days, and everybody supposed it impossible I should exist above a fortnight after breathing the damp air. I remained six months, continually drenched with very cold water, that trickled upon me from the thick arches above; and I can safely affirm that for the first three months I was never dry, yet I continued in health. I was visited daily at noon, after the relieving of guard, and the doors were then obliged to be left open for some minutes, otherwise the dampness of the air put out my gaolers’ candles.
“This was my situation. And here I sat, destitute of friends, helplessly wretched, preyed on by all the tortures of an imagination that continually suggested the most gloomy, the most horrid, the most dreadful of images. My heart was not yet wholly turned to stone; my fortitude was reduced to despondency; my dungeon was the very cave of despair; yet was my arm restrained, and this excess of misery endured.
“How, then, may hope be wholly eradicated from the heart of man? My fortitude, after some time, began to revive. I glowed with the desire of convincing the world I was capable of suffering what man had never suffered before, perhaps of, at last, emerging from beneath this load of wretchedness triumphant over my enemies. So long and ardently did my fancy dwell on this picture that my mind at length acquired a heroism which Socrates himself certainly never possessed. Age had benumbed his sense of pleasure, and he drank the poisonous draught with cool indifference; but I was young, inured to high hopes, yet now beholding deliverance impossible, or at an immense, a dreadful distance. Such, too, were my other sufferings of soul and body that I could not hope and live.
“About noon my door was opened. Sorrow and compassion were painted on the countenances of my keepers; no one spoke, no one bade me ‘Good morrow!’ Dreadful, indeed, was the sound of their arrival; for the monstrous bolts and bars moved with difficulty, and the noise of their removal would be resounding for a good half hour through the vaults of the prison.
“But at length a camp bed, mattress, and blankets were brought me, and beside it an ammunition loaf of six pounds’ weight. ‘That you may no more complain of hunger,’ said the town major, when the loaf was laid before me, ‘you shall have as much bread as you can eat.’ The door was shut, and I again left to my thoughts.”
For eleven months Trenck had been dying of hunger, and he devoured the bread so greedily that repletion nearly finished what starvation had begun, and he became seriously ill. When he had somewhat recovered he began anew to meditate a scheme of escape.
“I observed, as the four doors of my cell were opened, that they were only of wood; I therefore considered whether I might not even cut off the locks with the knife that I had so fortunately concealed; and should this and every other means fail, then would be the time to die. I likewise determined to make an attempt to free myself of my chains. I happily forced my right hand through the handcuffs, though the blood trickled from my nails. My attempts on the left were long ineffectual, but by rubbing with a brick, which I got from my seat, on a rivet that had been negligently closed, I effected this also.
“The chain was fastened to the ring round my body by a hook, the end of which was not inserted in the ring; therefore, by setting my foot against the wall, I had strength enough so far to bend this hook back, and open it, as to force out the link of the chain. The remaining difficulty was the chain that attached my foot to the wall; the links of this I took, doubled, twisted, and wrenched, till at length, nature having bestowed on me great strength, I made a desperate effort, sprang forcibly up, and two links at once flew off. Fortunate indeed did I think myself. I hastened to the door, groped in the dark to find the clinchings of the nails by which the lock was fastened, and discovered no very large piece of wood need be cut. Immediately I went to work with my knife, and cut through the oak door to find its thickness, which proved to be only one inch, therefore it was possible to open all the four doors in four and twenty hours.
“Again hope revived in my heart. To prevent discovery I hastened to put on my chains; but, O Heaven! what difficulties had I to surmount. After much groping about, I at length found the link that had flown off, but this I hid. It had hitherto been my good fortune to escape examination, as the possibility of ridding myself of such chains was in no wise suspected. The separated iron links I tied together with my hair ribbon; but when I again endeavoured to force my hand into the ring, it was so swelled that every effort was fruitless. The whole night was employed upon the rivet, but all labour was in vain.
“It was near the hour of visitation, and necessity and danger again obliged me to attempt forcing my hand through the ring, an operation at length, after excruciating tortures, I effected. My visitors came, and everything had the appearance of order. I found it, however, impossible to again free my right hand while it continued swelled.
“I therefore remained quiet for the time; and on the fourth of July, the day I had fixed for my attempt, the moment my visitors had left me, I disencumbered myself of irons, took my knife and began my Herculean labours on the doors. The first of them that opened inwards was conquered in less than an hour. The other was a very different task. The lock was soon cut round, but it opened outwards; there was, therefore, no other means left but to cut the whole door away above the bar. Incessant and incredible labour made this possible, though it was the more difficult as everything was to be done by feeling, as I was totally in the dark; the sweat dropped, or rather flowed from my body. My fingers were clotted in my own blood, and my lacerated hands were one continued wound.
“Daylight appeared. I clambered over the door that I had cut through, and got up to the window in the space or cell that was between the double doors as before described. Here I saw that my dungeon was in the ditch of the first rampart; before me I saw the road from the rampart, the guard but fifty paces distant, and the high palisades that were in the ditch, and must be scaled before I could reach the rampart. Hope grew stronger. My efforts were redoubled. The first of the next double doors was attacked, which likewise opened inward, and was soon conquered. The sun set before I had ended this, and the fourth was cut away as the second had been. My strength failed, both my hands were raw. I rested awhile, began again, and had made a cut of a foot long when my knife snapped, and the broken blade dropped to the ground.”
Seeing all his dreams of liberty thus vanish in a moment, the unfortunate prisoner, abandoning himself to despair, opened the veins of his left arm and foot with the broken blade.
“I fainted, and I know not how long I remained in this state. Suddenly I heard my own name, awoke, and again heard the words, ‘Baron Trenck!’ ‘Who calls?’ was my answer. And who indeed was it to be but my loved grenadier Gefhardt--my former faithful friend in the citadel. The good, the kind fellow had got upon the rampart that he might see and comfort me.
“‘In what state are you?’ said Gefhardt. ‘Weltering in my blood,’ answered I; ‘to-morrow you will find me dead.’ ‘Why should you die?’ replied he. ‘It is much easier for you to escape from this place than from the citadel. There is no sentinel here, and I shall soon find means to furnish you with tools. If you can only break out, leave the rest to me. As often as I am on guard, I will seek an opportunity to speak to you. In the whole of the Star Fort there are only two sentinels, the one at the entrance and the other at the guard-house. Do not despair, God will help you, trust to me.’ The good man’s kindness and his words revived my hopes. I saw the possibility of my escape. A secret joy diffused itself through my soul. I immediately tore my shirt, bound up my wounds, and waited the approach of day; and the sun soon after shone through my window with more than its accustomed brightness.
“Till noon I had time to consider what might further be done; yet what could be done? What could be expected but that I should now be much more cruelly treated, and even more insupportably ironed than before, finding as they must the doors cut through and my fetters shaken off.
“After mature consideration I therefore made the following resolution, which succeeded happily, and even beyond my hopes. Before I proceed, however, I will speak a few words concerning my situation at this moment. It is impossible to describe how much I was exhausted. The prison swam with blood, and certainly but little was left in my body. With painful wounds, swelled and torn hands, I stood shirtless in my cell. I felt an almost irresistible inclination to sleep, scarcely had strength to keep my legs out, and I was obliged to rouse myself that I might execute my plan.
“With the bar that separated my hands I loosened the bricks of my seat, which as they were newly laid, was easily done, and heaped them up in the middle of my prison. The inner door was quite open, and with my chains I so barricaded the upper half of the second, as to prevent any one climbing over it. When noon came, and the first of the doors was unlocked, all were astonished to find the second open. There I stood, besmeared with blood, the picture of horror, with a brick in one hand, and in the other my broken knife, crying as they approached, ‘Keep off, major, keep off. Tell the governor I will live no longer in chains, and that here I stand if he pleases, to be shot, for so only will I be conquered. No man shall enter; I will destroy every one that approaches; here are my weapons; I will die in despite of tyranny.’ The major was terrified, and lacking resolution to approach, made his report to the governor. I, mean time, sat down on my bricks to await what might happen. My second intent, however, was not so desperate as it appeared. I sought only to obtain a favourable capitulation.
“The governor-general, Borck, presently came, attended by the town major and some officers. He entered the outer cell, but sprang back the moment he beheld a figure like me, standing with a brick and uplifted arm. I repeated what I had told the major, and he immediately ordered six grenadiers to force the door. The front cell was scarcely six feet broad, so that no more than two at a time could attack my intrenchment, and when they saw my threatening bricks ready to descend, they leaped back in terror. A short pause ensued, and the old town major, with the chaplain, advanced towards the door to soothe me: the conversation continued some time to no purpose. The governor grew angry, and ordered a fresh attack. The first grenadier I knocked down, and the rest ran back to avoid my missiles.
“The town major again began a parley. ‘For God’s sake, my dear Trenck,’ said he, ‘in what have I injured you, that you endeavour to effect my ruin? I must answer for your having through my negligence concealed a knife; be persuaded, I entreat you; be appeased. You are not without hope or without friends.’ My answer was, ‘But will you promise not to load me with heavier irons than before?’
“He went out and spoke with the governor, and gave me his word of honour that the affair should be no further noticed, and that everything should be reinstated as formerly.
“Here ended the capitulation, and my wretched citadel was taken.”
The state of the unfortunate prisoner excited commiseration, and he was attended with great care, and supplied with everything needful to his recovery. For four days he was suffered to remain out of irons, but on the fifth he was again fettered, and new doors, one of them of double thickness, were set up in place of those he had destroyed.
Gefhardt came on guard soon after this, and he at once began to concert with Trenck measures for a new attempt at flight. He furnished him with writing materials, and undertook to post a letter to a friend of the prisoner, in Vienna. This friend sent back some money, which Gefhardt found means to convey to the prisoner while handing him his food.