第74章 CHAPTER III.(3)

To old K-, who was as poor as he was honest, I gave three hundred ducats; and he, till death, continued my grateful friend. Idistributed nearly as much to the other officers; and matters proceeded so far that Lieutenant Glotin gave back the keys to the major without locking my prison, himself passing half the night with me. Money was given to the guard to drink; and thus everything succeeded to my wish, and the tyrant Borck was deceived. I had a supply of light; had books, newspapers, and my days passed swiftly away. I read, I wrote, I busied myself so thoroughly that I almost forgot I was a prisoner. When, indeed, the surly, dull blockhead, Major Bruckhausen, had the inspection, everything had to be carefully reinstated. Major Z-, the second of the three, was also wholly mine. He was particularly attached to me; for I had promised to marry his daughter, and, should I die in prison, to bequeath him a legacy of ten thousand florins, Lieutenant Sonntag got false handcuffs made for me, that were so wide I could easily draw my hands out; the lieutenants only examined my irons, the new handcuffs were made perfectly similar to the old, and Bruckhausen had too much stupidity to remark any difference.

The remainder of my chains I could disencumber myself of at pleasure. When I exercised myself, I held them in my hands, that the sentinel might be deceived by their clanking. The neck-iron was the only one I durst not remove; it was likewise too strongly riveted. I filed through the upper link of the pendant chain, however, by which means I could take it off, and this I concealed with bread in the manner before mentioned.

So I could disencumber myself of most of my fetters, and sleep in ease. I again obtained sausages and cold meat, and thus my situation, bad as it still was, became less miserable. Liberty, however, was most desirable: but, alas! not one of the three lieutenants had the courage of a Schell: Saxony, too, was in the hands of the Prussians, and flight, therefore, more dangerous.

Persuasion was in vain with men determined to risk nothing, but, if they went, to go in safety. Will, indeed, was not wanting in Glotin and Sonntag; but the first was a poltroon, and the latter a man of scruples, who thought this step might likewise be the ruin of his brother at Berlin.

The sentinels were doubled, therefore my escape through my hole, which had been two years dug, could not, unperceived by them, be effected: still less could I, in the face of the guard, clamber the twelve feet high pallisadoes. The following labour, therefore, though Herculean, was undertaken.

Lieutenant Sonntag, measuring the interval between the hole I had dug and the entrance in the gallery in the principal rampart, found it to be thirty-seven feet. Into this it was possible I might, by mining, penetrate. The difficulty of the enterprise was lessened by the nature of the ground, a fine white sand. Could I reach the gallery my freedom was certain. I had been informed how many steps to the right or left must be taken, to find the door that led to the second rampart: and, on the day when I should be ready for flight, the officer was secretly to leave this door open. I had light, and mining tools, and was further to rely on money and my own discretion.

I began and continued this labour about six months. I have already noticed the difficulty of scraping out the earth with my hands, as the noise of instruments would have been heard by the sentinels. Ihad scarcely mined beyond my dungeon wall before I discovered the foundation of the rampart was not more than a foot deep; a capital error certainly in so important a fortress. My labour became the lighter, as I could remove the foundation stones of my dungeon, and was not obliged to mine so deep.

My work at first proceeded so rapidly, that, while I had room to throw back my sand, I was able in one night to gain three feet; but ere I had proceeded ten feet I discovered all my difficulties.

Before I could continue my work I was obliged to make room for myself, by emptying the sand out of my hole upon the floor of the prison, and this itself was an employment of some hours. The sand was obliged to be thrown out by the hand, and after it thus lay heaped in my prison, must again be returned into the hole; and Ihave calculated that after I had proceeded twenty feet, I was obliged to creep under ground, in my hole, from fifteen hundred to two thousand fathoms, within twenty-four hours, in the removal and replacing of the sand. This labour ended, care was to be taken that in none of the crevices of the floor there might be any appearance of this fine white sand. The flooring was the next to be exactly replaced, and my chains to be resumed. So severe was the fatigue of one day, in this mode, that I was always obliged to rest the three following.

To reduce my labour as much as possible, I was constrained to make the passage so small that my body only had space to pass, and I had not room to draw my arm back to my head. The work, too, must all be done naked, otherwise the dirtiness of my shirt must have been remarked; the sand was wet, water being found at the depth of four feet, where the stratum of the gravel began. At length the expedient of sand-bags occurred to me, by which it might be removed out and in more expeditiously. I obtained linen from the officers, but not in sufficient quantities; suspicions would have been excited at observing so much linen brought into the prison. At last I took my sheets and the ticking that enclosed my straw, and cut them up for sand-bags, taking care to lie down on my bed, as if ill, when Bruckhausen paid his visit.