th an expression of malicious joy:

"I have tamed him forever! he will not escape me!"

But Trenck was not tamed, his courage was not broken. In this crushed
and wasted form dwelt a strong soul, a bounding heart; he had been bound
in chains thought to be indissoluble. Trenck alone did not believe this;
he trusted still in the magic power of his will, in his good star, which
had not yet been quenched in darkness.

In the wall to which the chain was fastened, his name was built, in
red tiles; a gravestone marked the spot upon which his feet moved, upon
which a death's head and the name of Trenck was engraved. Under this
stone there was a vault, and when one looked at the moist walls, from
which the water constantly trickled, and at the dark cell, which for six
months had not been cheered by one ray of light, they might well suppose
that the gravestone would soon be lifted, and the vault opened to
receive the poor prisoner, upon whose grave no other tears would flow.
These dark walls were, as it appeared, softer and more pitiful than the
hearts of men.

Trenck was not subdued; the death's head and his name upon the
gravestone did not terrify him! It was nothing more to him than a
constant reminder to collect his courage and his strength, and to oppose
to his daily menace of death a strong conviction of life and liberty.

If his prison were dark, and warmed by no ray of sunshine, he leaned his
head against the wall, closed his eyes, and his vivid imagination and
glowing fancy was the slave of his will, and painted his past life in
magic pictures.

The prisoner, clad as a convict, with his hands and feet chained, became
at once the child of fortune and love; the exalted favorite of princes,
the admired cavalier, the envied courtier, and the darling of lovely
women.

When hunger drove him to eat the coarse bread which was his only
nourishment, and to satisfy his thirst with the muddy water in the tin
pitcher at his side, he thought of the meals, worthy of Lucullus,
of which he had partaken, at the Russian court, by the side of the
all-powerful Russian minister Bestuchef; he remembered the fabulous pomp
which surrounded him, and the profound reverence which was shown him, as
the acknowledged favorite of the prime minister of the empress.

When no one whispered one word of consolation or of sympathy, for all
trembled at the ceaseless watchfulness of the commandant--when the rude
silent jailer came daily and placed his