“Presence of mind and resolution were all that were now left. I instantly ran to the stable, while Schell detained the peasant in the chamber. He, however, was a worthy man, and directed him to the road towards Bohemia. We were still about seven miles from Glatz, having lost ourselves among the mountains, where we had wandered many miles. The daughter followed me. I found three horses in the stable but no bridles. I conjured her in the most passionate manner possible to assist me. She was affected, seemed half willing to follow me, and gave me two bridles. I led the horses to the door, called Schell, and helped him, with his lame leg, on horseback. The old peasant then began to weep, and begged I would not take his horses; but he luckily wanted courage, and perhaps the will to impede us, for with nothing more than a dung fork, in our then feeble condition, he might have stopped us long enough to have called in assistance from the village.
“And now behold us on horseback, without hats or saddles--Schell with his uniform scarf and gorget, and I in my red regimental coat. Still we were in danger of seeing all our hopes vanish, for my horse would not stir from the stable. However, at last, good horseman-like, I made him move. Schell led the way, and we had scarcely gone a hundred paces before we perceived the peasants coming in crowds from the village. As kind fortune would have it, the people were all at church, it being a festival. It was nine in the morning, and had the peasants been at home we had been lost without redemption. We were obliged to take the road to Wunshelburg, and pass through the town where Schell had been quartered a month before, and in which he was known by everybody. Our dress, without hats or saddles, sufficiently proclaimed we were deserters; our horses, however, continued to go tolerably well, and we had the good luck to get through the town, although there was a garrison of one hundred and eighty infantry and twelve horse purposely to arrest deserters. Schell knew the road to Brummen, where we arrived at eleven o’clock, and from thence we went to Braunau, where we were safe.”
During the first few months following his escape, Trenck
[Illustration: Trenck escaping with Lieutenant Schell.]