The imprisonment accorded to the intrepid young American was as vile and cruel as any devised in the Dark Ages. He was put in a cell almost underground, with but one small slit near the top to let in a little light. A low bench and some straw formed the furnishings, while two chains linked him at ankle and wrist to the ceiling. To make things a trifle more cheerful for him, they showed him a prisoner in a cell which was only a walled hole in the ground! The prisoner had been there for many years and his name and residence were now utterly forgotten. The jailers also exhibited their expert method of swift decapitation and acted out the method with a large two-bladed sword. Daily questionings of a cruel kind were used in order to force him to confess the truth--or rather what they wished to believe was the truth--that he had been the agent of a widespread plot. He stated that it was no man's plot but his own. They threatened torture, but he did not flinch or change his statement. At last the officers were convinced that there had been no concerted plot. They then softened the rigors of Huger's imprisonment, gave him a cell with a window where a star could sometimes be seen, and lengthened his chains so that he could take as many as three whole steps. After a time he managed to get into communication with Bollman who was in the room above. With a knotted handkerchief Bollman lowered a little ink in a walnut shell from his window, together with a scrap of dingy paper. Huger then wrote a letter of a few lines only to General Thomas Pinckney, then American Minister at London. His entreaty was to let his mother know that he was still alive; also to let Lafayette's friends know that he would certainly have escaped but that he had been recognized as an Olmuetz prisoner in a small town where he changed his horse; and that he had already mounted a fresh one when stopped. Huger's letter ended with the words, "Don't forget us. F.K.H. Olmuetz, Jan. 5th, 1795." By bribery and cajolery they started this letter off. Suffice it to say at present that, through the intervention of General Pinckney, the two young men were finally released and made their way swiftly out of the country. It was well that they hurried, for the emperor decided they had been released too soon and sent an edict for their rearrest. They had, however, by that time crossed the line and were out of his domain.