I had made various attempts to communicate with Kueck, the German Consul. Always I met the retort that Kueck himself said I was no German. At the same time, managing to smuggle an appeal for aid to the American Consul, I was informed that etiquette forbade his taking any steps in my behalf. Kueck himself, he said, had told him the German Consulate was doing all it could to protect me. It did not need a Bismarck to grasp the implications of those contradictory statements. After I had been in prison for about three weeks Kueck came to see me and made the whole matter thoroughly plain. “Von der Goltz,” he opened bluntly, “you are in a bad situation.” “Do you think so?” I asked him, significantly. “I have every reason to think so,” he said. “My hands are tied. I positively can take no steps in your behalf, unless”—he looked straight at me—“unless you restore certain documents you have no right to possess.” They had me nicely. The surrender of my letter was the price I must pay for my life. Acting under instructions, he had made me a definite offer. I had to take it or leave it. I could not give the letter up. It was my guarantee of safety. As long as Kueck did not know where it was I was valuable to him only while alive. Furthermore, I had some hopes of being freed by outside aid. Through Almendaris I had learned that the Constitutionalists were attacking Chihuahua, with good hope of taking the city. I knew that if they succeeded, the German—whose suffering for their cause, I was told, was known throughout their forces—would be well taken care of. So I reached my decision. “Herr Consul,” I said, “I will not give up the papers you refer to. I am not a child. Those papers are in a safe place. So are instructions as to their disposal in case of emergency. Let anything happen to me, and within a fortnight every newspaper in the United States will be printing the most sensational story within memory.” On July 23, 1913, I was tried by court-martial and sentenced to death. That led to a bitter personal quarrel between Gen. Manuel Chao, the Constitutionalist commander attacking the city, and Mercado, who defended it. Chao sent in a flag of truce, absolving me from any connection with his cause and threatening that if I were killed Mercado personally would have to pay the score when the Constitutionalists took Chihuahua. The Indian bully retorted that if the Constitutionalists ever captured the city they would not find their pet alive there.