Max had always detested the life of a garrison, and especially of a prison garrison, and the change proved very agreeable to him. Though brave as the bravest, he had not much energy or forecast, and commonly let his affairs take care of themselves. He lived on from day to day, neither abandoning his plan of desertion, nor acting upon it; until, after more than two years, he was remanded to Ehrenberg, where his old disgust returned in greater force than ever. In this state of his mind, the duty of visitor was assigned to him, thus bringing him in contact with Morton, reviving his half-forgotten feeling, and, at the same time, promising him an opportunity to carry his former scheme into effect. To this time, Morton had borne his troubles with as much philosophy as could reasonably have been expected; but now that something like a tangible hope began to open on him, the excitement became intense. He waited the daily visits of the soldier with a painful eagerness and suspense. At the stated hours, Max always came; and, at each return, some whispered word of friendship greeted the prisoner's ear. Two days after the first paper, he thrust in another; and Morton read as follows:-- "We must wait; but our time will come; perhaps in ten days; perhaps in a week. I shall watch for a chance. Only be patient." Five long and anxious days succeeded; when, on the forenoon of the sixth, Max thrust in a third paper; and Morton, with a beating heart, read,-- "When the jailer comes this afternoon, make him talk with you, and keep him with his back to the door. _I shall come._ Be cool and steady. I shall tell you what to do." Illness and long confinement had wrought upon Morton's system in a manner which made it doubly difficult to preserve the coolness which the emergency demanded; but he summoned his utmost resolution to meet this crisis of his fate. The jailer was nowise addicted to conversation; and how to engage him in it, was a problem of some difficulty. There was only one topic on which Morton had ever seen him at all animated. This was the battle of Wagram, in which, in his youth, he had taken part, and where he had received a sabre cut, which had left a ghastly blue scar across his cheek. In dilating on this momentous passage of his life, the old German would sometimes be roused into a great excitement; and Morton had often amused himself with trying to comprehend the jargon which he poured out, in thick gobbling tones, about cannonading and charging, sabres and bombshells, pointing continually at his scar, and laboring to impress his hearer with the conviction, immovably fixed in his own mind, that he, Jacob, was one of the chief heroes of the day.