The first intimation Trenck received was from the prince who came in person to his cell, followed by a large staff of officials. The governor called upon the prisoner to confess who had carried his letter to Gummern. Trenck denied that he had sent any letter, and his cell was searched forthwith. Smiths, carpenters and masons entered, but after an hour’s work failed to discover more than the false grating in the window. The prince upbraided, argued, threatened; but Trenck obstinately refused to speak. The governor had scarcely been gone an hour when some one came in saying that one of his accomplices had already hanged himself, and, fearing that it was his good friend, he was on the point of betraying Gefhardt, when he heard by accident that the suicide was some one else. He took fresh courage from the fact that his diggings had not been exposed, and that he had five hundred florins in gold safely concealed, with a good supply of candles and all his implements. After this collapse, there was a change in Trenck’s condition. The regiment in the garrison went off to the Seven Years’ War which had just broken out, and was relieved by a party of militia, and a new commandant took charge, General Borck, who was informed by the king that he must answer for Trenck with his head. Borck was timorous and mistrustful, a stupid bully, who acted to his prisoner “as an executioner to a criminal.” He increased Trenck’s irons, and had a broad neck ring added with a chain that hung down and joined the anklet; he removed the prisoner’s bedding, did not even give him straw, and constantly abused him with “a thousand insulting expressions.” “However,” says Trenck, “I did not remain a single word in his debt and vexed him almost to madness.” The object of the governor was to cut Trenck off from all communication with mankind. To assure complete isolation, the four keys of his four doors were kept by four different persons; the commandant held one, the town-major another, the third was kept by the officer of the day and the fourth by the lieutenant of the guard. The prisoner had no opportunity for speaking to any of them singly, until the rule slackened. The commandant rarely appeared; Magdeburg became so filled with prisoners of war that the town-major gave up his key to the officer of the day; and the other officers, when they dined with General Walrabe, who was also confined in the Star Fort, passed their keys to the lieutenant of the guard. So in this way Trenck sometimes had a word with each of them alone, and in due course secured the friendship of two of them.