At the end of twenty miles Lafayette had to change horses. He appealed to an honest-looking peasant, who helped him to find another one, but also ran to warn the authorities. These became suspicious when they saw Lafayette's wounded hand, which had been bitten by the officer almost to the bone. They arrested him on general principles and he was carried back to a captivity more onerous than before. He was deprived of all rides, of course, of all news, even of the watch and shoe-buckles which up to this time he had been allowed to retain. Bollman reached Hoff and waited for Lafayette until nightfall, then made his way into Silesia. But he was captured and returned to Austria and finally to Olmütz. The treatment accorded Lafayette's would-be rescuers was barbarous in the extreme. Huger was chained hand and foot in an underground cell, where he listened to realistic descriptions of beheadings, and, worse still, of how prisoners were walled up and forgotten. Daily questions and threats of torture were tried to make him confess that the attempt was part of a wide-spread conspiracy. As his statements and his courage did not waver, the prison authorities came at last to believe him, and he was taken to a cell aboveground where it was possible to move three steps, though he was still chained. He found that Bollman was confined in the cell just above him. The latter let down a walnut [Pg 234]shell containing a bit of ink and also a scrap of paper. With these Huger wrote a few lines to the American minister at London, telling of their plight and ending with the three eloquent words, "Don't forget us!"--doubly eloquent to one who knew those stories of walled-up prisoners underground. They bribed the guard to smuggle this out of the prison, and in time it reached its destination. The American minister did not forget them. Through his good offices they were released and told to leave the country. They waited for no second invitation, which was very wise, because the emperor repented his clemency. He sent an order for their rearrest, but it arrived, fortunately, just too late to prevent their escape across the border. [Pg 235]XXV VOLUNTEERS IN MISFORTUNE