s toward the town, shouting and
waving his cap to call the attention of the sentinels.

What was to be done? They had now but one horse. The alarm had been
given. Not a minute could be lost.

Huger gave his horse to Lafayette and told him hurriedly to go to
Hoff, the rendezvous agreed upon. Lafayette mounted the horse and
started out. But he could not bear to leave his two rescuers in such a
plight, so he came back to ask if he could not do something for them.

"No, no!" they cried. "Go to Hoff! Go to Hoff!" they repeated. "We
will follow."

Now if they had said this in French, if they had said "Allez a Hoff,"
Lafayette would have understood the direction. But not knowing the
name of this near-by village, he misunderstood. He thought the English
words meant only "Go off!" A fatal misunderstanding!

Huger and Bollman soon released their officer and both mounted the
remaining horse. He was not used to "carrying double." The insulted
creature set his feet in a ditch and threw them both. Bollman was
stunned. Huger lifted him up and then started off to recover the
horse. On the way he was thinking what course he should take in this
critical and dangerous juncture.

When he came back he had decided. He said that Bollman should take the
horse and follow Lafayette, for Bollman knew German and could give
more help than he could. Alarm guns were beginning to be fired from
the battlements, and trains of soldiers were seen issuing from the
gates; but these portentous signs did not influence him. Bollman was
persuaded; he mounted, put spurs to his horse, and was soon out of
sight. Young America stood alone on this wide, dangerous plain; the
shadow of that ominous fortress fell gloomily on its border. The
guards came down. Between two rows of fixed bayonets Huger passed into
the fortress.

The bold plan was doomed to complete failure! Lafayette rode twenty
miles; but the blood on his greatcoat awakened suspicion; he was
arrested and carried back to Olmuetz where a heavier and gloomier
imprisonment awaited him.

The same fate awaited Bollman; but Lafayette's despair was the deeper
because he feared that his brave rescuers had been executed for their
gallant attempt in his behalf.

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 for