ndition, he might have stopped us long enough to have called in
assistance from the village.

And now behold us on horseback, without hats or saddles; Schell with his
uniform scarf and gorget, and I in my red regimental coat. Still we were
in danger of seeing all our hopes vanish, for my horse would not stir
from the stable; however, at last, good horseman-like, I made him move:
Schell led the way, and we had scarcely gone a hundred paces, before we
perceived the peasants coming in crowds from the village.

As kind fortune would have it, the people were all at church, it being a
festival: the peasants Schell had sent were obliged to call aid out of
church. It was but nine in the morning; and had the peasants been at
home, we had been lost past redemption.

We were obliged to take the road to Wunshelburg, and pass through the
town where Schell had been quartered a month before, and in which he was
known by everybody. Our dress, without hats or saddles, sufficiently
proclaimed we were deserters: our horses, however, continued to go
tolerably well, and we had the good luck to get through the town,
although there was a garrison of one hundred and eighty infantry, and
twelve horse, purposely to arrest deserters. Schell knew the road to
Brummem, where we arrived at eleven o'clock, after having met, as I
before mentioned, Captain Zerbst.

He who has been in the same situation only can imagine, though he never
can describe, all the joy we felt. An innocent man, languishing in a
dungeon, who by his own endeavours, has broken his chains, and regained
his liberty, in despite of all the arbitrary power of princes, who vainly
would oppose him, conceives in moments like these such an abhorrence of
despotism, that I could not well comprehend how I ever could resolve to
live under governments where wealth, content, honour, liberty, and life
all depend upon a master's will, and who, were his intentions the most
pure, could not be able, singly, to do justice to a whole nation.

Never did I, during life, feel pleasure more exquisite than at this
moment. My friend for me had risked a shameful death, 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
bring us, alive, back to Glatz. Yet this was but the first act of the
tragedy of which I was doomed the hero, and the mournful incidents of
which all arose out of, and depended on