THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
rounded by his guards, taken to the carriage amid the resounding acclamations of the people and the rolling of the drums of the soldiers, and carried back to the jail.
As was to be expected, the authorities had taken every possible measure to prevent an attempt to liberate Kinkel in Cologne. The government had meanwhile also resolved not to take him back to the penitentiary at Naugard, but to imprison him in Spandau, probably because in Naugard warm sympathies with the sufferer had manifested themselves. To mislead Kinkel's friends and to avoid all difficulties on the way, he was not, as generally expected by the public, transported by rail, but in a coach, accompanied by two police officers. The departure took place on the day after the trial in all secrecy, but just these arrangements had made possible an attempt at escape which Kinkel undertook of his own motion and without help from the outside, and which he narrated to me later as follows:
One evening the police officers stopped the coach at a wayside tavern of a Westphalian village where they intended to take supper. Kinkel was placed in a room in the upper story, where one officer remained with him, while the other went down to make some arrangements. Kinkel noticed that the door of the room was left ajar and that the key was in the lock outside. The idea to take advantage of this circumstance occurred to him instantly. Standing near the window he directed the attention of the police officer who guarded him, sitting near the door, to a noise outside on the street. As soon as the police officer stepped to the window, Kinkel sprang with a rapid jump through the door and turned the key in the lock outside. Then he ran as fast as he could down the stairs through the back door into the yard, into the kitchen garden, and in the direction that was open to him, into the fields. Soon the fugi-
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