It was certain, however, that he would be in serious danger as soon as he had been formally outlawed by the Emperor. A plot, kept secret from all his friends, was formed for his safety, and successfully carried out during his return from Worms to Wittenberg. Luther travelled in an open wagon, with only one companion. On entering the Thuringian Forest, he sent his escort in advance, and was soon afterwards, in a lonely glen, seized by four knights in armor and with closed visors, placed upon a horse and carried away. The news spread like wild-fire over Germany that he had been murdered, and for nearly a year he was lost to the world. His writings were only read the more: the Papal bull and the Imperial edict which ordered them to be burned were alike disregarded. Charles V. went back to Spain immediately after the Diet of Worms, after having transferred the German possessions of the house of Hapsburg to his younger brother, Ferdinand, and the business of suppressing Luther's doctrines fell chiefly to the Archbishops of Mayence and Cologne, and the Papal Legate. Luther, meanwhile, was in security in a castle called the Wartburg, on the summit of a mountain near Eisenach. He was dressed in a knightly fashion, wore a helmet, breastplate and sword, allowed his beard to grow, and went by the name of "Squire George." But in the privacy of his own chamber--all the furniture of which is preserved to this day, as when he lived in it--he worked zealously upon a translation of the New Testament into German. In the spring of 1522 he was disturbed in his labors by the report of new doctrines which were being preached in Wittenberg. His friend Carlstadt had joined a fanatical sect, called the Anabaptists, which advocated the abolition of the mass, the destruction of pictures and statues, and proclaimed the coming of God's Kingdom upon the Earth. The experience of the Bohemians showed Luther the necessity of union in his great work of reforming the Christian Church. Moreover, his enemies triumphantly pointed to the excesses of the Anabaptists as the natural result of his doctrines. There was no time to be lost: in spite of the remonstrance of the Elector Frederick, he left the Wartburg, and rode alone, as a man-at-arms, to Wittenberg, where even Melanchthon did not recognize him on his arrival. He began preaching, with so much power and eloquence, that in a few days the new sect lost all the ground it had gained, and its followers were expelled from the city. The necessity of arranging another and simpler form of divine service was made evident by these occurrences; and after the publication of the New Testament in German, in September, 1522, Luther and Melanchthon united in the former task. [Sidenote: 1523. THE PEASANTS' WAR.]