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 to call the whole church together and make them a long oration on the matter. The other preachers stood by him, and eventually the church seem to have been satisfied that the proper course had been pursued. In the meantime Hut made good his escape from the castle. One suspects that the Prince was not averse to this solution of the matter; at any rate, some friendly hands let the preacher down with a rope over the walls by night.

Hut made his way back to the city of Augsburg, but this town had ceased to be a safe refuge for Anabaptists. Many were arrested and imprisoned, among them Hut, against whom the authorities had been previously warned by the council of Nürnberg. While imprisoned in the tower, he is said to have suffered severe tortures. His death was mysterious. He was found one day in his cell, badly burned and in a dying condition. An old chronicle says that the careless jailer left a light near the straw, which took fire. The enemies of the Anabaptists circulated a story that he attempted to escape by setting fire to his cell and was fatally burned in the attempt. It is impossible to