ted:

"Surrender, rascals, or you are dead men!"

This was what Trenck desired. He wheeled about and discharged his pistol,
sending a bullet through the first Prussian's breast, stretching him dead
upon the spot.

At the same moment Schell fired, but his assailants returned the shot and
wounded him.

Trenck again discharged his pistol twice in succession. Then, as one of
the Prussians, who was apparently still uninjured, took to flight across
the plain he sped furiously after him. The pursuit continued some two or
three hundred paces. The Prussian, as if impelled by some irresistible
force, whirled around and Trenck caught sight of his blanched countenance
and blood-stained linen. One of the shots had struck him!

Instantly Trenck put an end to the half-finished task with a sword thrust.
But the time wasted on the Prussian had cost him dear. Returning hastily
to the field of action, he perceived Schell struggling in the grasp of the
two remaining Prussians. Wounded as he was, he had been unable to cope
single-handed with them, and was rapidly being borne toward the carriage.

"Courage, Schell!" Trenck shouted. "I am coming!"

At the sound of his friend's voice Schell felt himself saved. By a supreme
effort he succeeded in releasing himself from his captors.

Frantic with rage and disappointment, the Prussians again advanced to the
attack upon the two wretched fugitives, but Trenck's blood was up. He made
a furious onslaught upon them with his sword, driving them back step by
step to their carriage, into which they finally tumbled, shouting to the
driver in frantic haste to whip up his horses.

As the carriage dashed away the friends drew long breaths of relief and
wiped away the blood and powder stains from their heated brows. Careless
of their sufferings, these iron-hearted men merely congratulated each
other upon their victory.

"Ah, it's well ended, Schell," exclaimed Trenck, "and I rejoice that we
have had this opportunity to chastise the miserable traitors. But you are
wounded, my poor Schell!"

"It is nothing," the lieutenant replied carelessly; "merely a wound in the
throat, and, I think, another in the head."

This was the last attempt for a considerable time to regain possession of
Trenck's person. But the two friends suffered greatly from hardships and
were made to feel more than once the cruelty of Prussian oppression. Even
Trenck's sister, instigated thereto by her husband, who feared to incur