med the furnishings, while two
chains linked him at ankle and wrist to the ceiling. To make things a
trifle more cheerful for him, they showed him a prisoner in a cell
which was only a walled hole in the ground! The prisoner had been
there for many years and his name and residence were now utterly
forgotten. The jailers also exhibited their expert method of swift
decapitation and acted out the method with a large two-bladed sword.
Daily questionings of a cruel kind were used in order to force him to
confess the truth--or rather what they wished to believe was the
truth--that he had been the agent of a widespread plot. He stated that
it was no man's plot but his own. They threatened torture, but he did
not flinch or change his statement.

At last the officers were convinced that there had been no concerted
plot. They then softened the rigors of Huger's imprisonment, gave him
a cell with a window where a star could sometimes be seen, and
lengthened his chains so that he could take as many as three whole
steps. After a time he managed to get into communication with Bollman
who was in the room above. With a knotted handkerchief Bollman lowered
a little ink in a walnut shell from his window, together with a scrap
of dingy paper. Huger then wrote a letter of a few lines only to
General Thomas Pinckney, then American Minister at London. His
entreaty was to let his mother know that he was still alive; also to
let Lafayette's friends know that he would certainly have escaped but
that he had been recognized as an Olmuetz prisoner in a small town
where he changed his horse; and that he had already mounted a fresh
one when stopped. Huger's letter ended with the words, "Don't forget
us. F.K.H. Olmuetz, Jan. 5th, 1795." By bribery and cajolery they
started this letter off.

Suffice it to say at present that, through the intervention of General
Pinckney, the two young men were finally released and made their way
swiftly out of the country. It was well that they hurried, for the
emperor decided they had been released too soon and sent an edict for
their rearrest. They had, however, by that time crossed the line and
were out of his domain.

After a short stay in London, Huger started for America. The passengers
on his ship discussed the story of Lafayette's attempted rescue through
the entire six weeks of the voyage, and they never dreamed that their
quiet young fellow-passenger was one of the rescuers until he received
an ovation o