who wants
to take my life?' thereupon Hartmann sprang out of the adjoining
smith's house, having added to his former weapons a hammer from the
anvil, which he threw at my father, and though he parried the blow with
the spear, yet the hammer glided along the spear and hit him on the
breast, so that he spit blood for some days. Immediately after,
Hartmann struck him with the axe on the shoulder; having now hit him
with both hammer and axe, and fancying he had the best of it, he
unsheathed his sword, and rushing at my father, ran on the spear, which
went into his body up to the handle, so that he fell. This is the true
account of this lamentable story; I know well that the adversaries
maintain that my father stabbed Hartmann when he was hiding himself
behind the stove in the smith's room, but it is a mere fable.

"My father hastened straight to the monastery of the Black Monks, with
whom he was acquainted, and they took him into the church, up under the
vaulted roof. Doctor Stoientin with many assistants and servants
searched every corner of the monastery, and came also into the church.
My father, thinking they saw him, was on the point of speaking out and
entreating that they would spare him, as he was innocent and had only
acted in self-defence; but the merciful God prevented him from
speaking, and shut the eyes of his adversaries so that they could not
see him.

"In the night the monks let him down over the wall, so that he
could walk along the dyke to the village of Neukirchen. There my
step-grandfather arranged that my father should go to Stralsund, in a
cart that he had ordered from Leitz, concealed among some sacks of
barley and fodder. Stoientin met the peasant in the night, and asked
him where he was going. 'To Stralsund,' he said. He kicked at the sacks
and inquired what load he was carrying. The other replied: 'Barley and
fodder.' He then asked whether the peasant had not seen some one riding
or running; the latter answered: 'He had seen one riding hastily
towards the village of Horst, who had appeared to him like Sastrow from
Greifswald; and he had been astonished at his riding so hastily in the
night.' So Doctor Stoientin left the peasant and rode to Horst; but my
father arrived at Stralsund and obtained a safe conduct from the
councillor there.

"But my father could not trust to this, as the deceased had himself
been under the safe conduct of my gracious sovereign Duke George; and
Dr. Stoientin, the counc