ick, and under my feet was a tombstone with the name of TRENCK also
cut on it, and carved with a death's head. The doors to my dungeon were
double, of oak, two inches thick; without these was an open space or
front cell, in which was a window, and this space was likewise shut in by
double doors. The ditch, in which this dreadful den was built, was
enclosed on both sides by palisades, twelve feet high, the key of the
door of which was entrusted to the officer of the guard, it being the
King's intention to prevent all possibility of speech or communication
with the sentinels. The only motion I had the power to make was that of
jumping upward, or swinging my arms to procure myself warmth. When more
accustomed to these fetters, I became capable of moving from side to
side, about four feet; but this pained my shin-bones.

The cell had been finished with lime and plaster but eleven days, and
everybody supposed it would be impossible I should exist in these damps
above a fortnight. I remained six months, continually immersed in very
cold water, that trickled upon me from the thick arches under which I
was; and I can safely affirm that, for the first three months, I was
never dry; yet did I continue in health. I was visited daily, at noon,
after relieving guard, and the doors were then obliged to be left open
for some minutes, otherwise the dampness of the air put out their
candles.

This was my situation, and here I sat, destitute of friends, helplessly
wretched, preyed on by all the torture of thought that continually
suggested the most gloomy, the most horrid, the most dreadful of images.
My heart was not yet wholly turned to stone; my fortitude was sunken to
despondency; my dungeon was the very cave of despair; yet was my arm
restrained, and this excess of misery endured.

How then may hope be wholly eradicated from the heart of man? My
fortitude, after some time, began to revive; I glowed with the desire of
convincing the world I was capable of suffering what man had never
suffered before; perhaps of at last emerging from this load of
wretchedness triumphant over my enemies. So long and ardently did my
fancy dwell on this picture, that my mind at length acquired a heroism
which Socrates himself certainly never possessed. Age had benumbed his
sense of pleasure, and he drank the poisonous draught with cool
indifference; but I was young, inured to high hopes, yet now beholding
deliverance impossible, or at an immen