The precautions taken effectually debarred the prisoner from any fresh attempt at evasion. A new governor had replaced the madman Borck, Lieutenant-Colonel Reichmann, a humane and mild-mannered officer. About this time, several members Of the royal family, including Princess Amelia, came to reside at Magdeburg and showed a kindly interest in Trenck’s grievous lot; his cell doors were presently opened each day to admit daylight and fresh air. He found employment, too, for his restless energies and was permitted to carve verses and figures upon the pewter cup provided as part of his cell furniture. The first rude attempt was much admired, the cup was impounded, and a new one served out; several, indeed, were provided in succession, so that Trenck became quite expert in this artistic employment and laboured at it continuously until the day of his release. By means of these cups he opened up communication with the outside world. Hitherto all correspondence had been forbidden; no one under pain of death might converse with him or supply him with pen, ink or paper. Strange to say, he was allowed to engrave what he pleased upon the pewter, and the cups were in great demand and passed into many hands. One reached the empress-queen of Austria and stimulated her to plead for Trenck’s pardon through her minister accredited to the court of Frederick. The engraving that touched her feelings was that of a bird in a cage held by a Turk, with the inscription, “The bird sings even in the storm: open his cage and break his fetters, ye friends of virtue, and his songs shall be the delight of your abodes.” The demand for these cups was so keen that Trenck worked at them by candle light for eighteen hours a day, and the reflected lustre from the pewter seriously injured his eyesight. It is a pathetic picture,--that of the active-minded, undefeated captive, labouring incessantly although weighed down by chains and the terrible encumbrance of a huge collar which pressed on the arteries at the back of his neck and occasioned intolerable headache.