his conversation with the universally pitied and
admired prisoner.

"You will not name your accomplices?" said he.

"No," said Trenck, "I will not betray my friends. And what good would it
do you to know their names? You would punish them, and would thereby sow
dragons' teeth from which new friends would rise for me. For undeserved
misfortune, and unmerited reproach, make for us friends in heaven and
on earth. Look there, sir commandant--look there at your soldiers. They
came here indifferent to me--they leave as my friends; and if they can
do no more, they will pray for me."

"Enough! enough of this," cried the commandant. "Be silent! And you,"
speaking to the soldiers, "get out of here! Send the blacksmith to
solder these chains at once. Go into the second passage--I want no one
but the blacksmith."

The soldiers withdrew, and the smith entered with his hot coals, his
glowing iron, and his panful of boiling lead. The commandant leaned
against the prison-door gazing at the smith; Trenck was looking eagerly
at the ceiling of his cell watching the shadows thrown there by the
glowing coals.

"It is the ignus fatuus of my freedom," said he, with a weary smile. "It
is the fourth time they have danced on this ceiling--it is the fourth
time my chains have been forged. But I tell you, commandant, I will
break them again, and the shadows flickering on these walls will be
changed to a glorious sun of freedom--it will illuminate my path so that
I can escape from this dungeon, in which I will leave nothing but my
curse for you my cruel keeper."

"You have not, then, despaired?" said the commandant, with a cold smile.
"You will still attempt to escape?"

Trenck fixed his keen, sparkling eyes upon Von Bruckhausen, and
stretching out his left arm to the smith, he said: "Listen, sir
commandant, to what I have to say to you, and may my words creep like
deadly poison through your veins! Hear me; as soon as you have left my
cell--as soon as that door has closed behind you--I will commence a new
plan of escape. You have thrown me in a cell under the earth. The
floor in my other cell was of wood--I cut my way through it. This is of
stone--I shall remove it. You come daily and search my room to see if
there is not some hole or some instrument hidden by which I might effect
my escape. Nevertheless I shall escape. God created the mole, and of it
I will learn how to burrow in the ground, and thus I will escape. You
will see that I hav