The officers on guard all commiserated him, and one of them, Lieutenant Sonntag, often came and sat with him when he could get all the keys. This officer was poor and in debt and did not refuse the money liberally offered by Trenck. A fresh plan of escape was soon conceived. As before, the essential preliminary was to obtain more cash to be employed in further bribery. The lieutenant, Sonntag, provided false handcuffs so wide that Trenck could easily draw his hands out, and he was soon able to disencumber himself at pleasure of all his other chains except the neck-iron. It was no longer possible to get out by the hole first constructed, as the sentinels had been doubled, and Trenck began driving a new subterranean passage thirty-seven feet long to the gallery in the principal rampart, through which, if gained, a free exit was assured. Another superhuman task was begun, which lasted for nearly a year. A deep hole was sunk, and on reaching the sand below the foundation, a transverse passage was driven through it, entailing such severe fatigue that at the end of one day’s work Trenck was obliged to rest for the three following days. It was necessary to work naked, as the dirtiness on his shirt would have been observed; at the depth of four feet the sand became wet and a stratum of gravel was reached. “The labour toward the conclusion,” Trenck tells us, “became so intolerable as to incite despondency. I frequently sat contemplating the heaps of sand during a momentary respite from work, and thinking it impossible I could have strength or time to replace all things as they were. I thought sometimes of abandoning my enterprise and leaving everything in its present disorder. Recollecting, however, the prodigious efforts and all the progress I had made, hope would again revive and exhausted strength return; again would I begin my labours to preserve my secret and my expectations. When my work was within six or seven feet of being accomplished, a new misfortune happened that at once frustrated all further attempts. I worked, as I have said, under the foundations of the rampart near where the sentinels stood. I could disencumber myself of my fetters, except my neck-collar and its pendent chain. This, although it had been fastened, got loose as I worked, and the clanking was heard by one of the sentinels about fifteen feet from my dungeon. The officer was called; they laid their ears to the ground, and heard me as I went backward and forward to bring my earth bags. This was reported the next day, and the major, who was my best friend, with the town-major, a smith and a mason entered my prison. I was terrified. The lieutenant, by a sign, gave me to understand I was discovered. An examination was begun, but the officers would not see, and the smith and mason found everything, as they thought, safe. Had they examined my bed they would have seen the ticking and sheets were gone.”