Page:Life and surprising adventures of Frederick Baron Trenck.pdf/22

 before I was used to them. I cannot describe what I suffered the first nightIn the imperfect darkness that prevailed, I could distinguish the form of dungeon. It was ten feet long, and eight broad, in one corner was a kind of bench of brick intended for a seat; and opposite the place where I was chained, was a window of semi-circular form, which was opened through a wall, six feet thick, it was one foot in height, and two feet in breadth. The passage through which the light penetrated into my prison, took its direction upwards, as far as the middle of the wall, and then descended outward towards the earth, forming an angle, with strong iron bars at each extremity. My eyes, after sometime became so accustomed to the darkness of the hole, that I could see a mouse run along the floor but in the winter when the sun was not visible, might be truly said to live in eternal night.

I had tamed a mouse so perfectly, that the little animal was continually playing with me, and used to eat out of my mouth. One night it skipped about so much, that the centinals hearing a noise made their report to the officer of the Guard. The Town Major arrived early in the morning, accompanied by locksmiths and masousmasons [sic]. The floor, the walls, my chains, and my body, were strictly examined: but finding all in order, they asked me the cause of last evening's bustle. Having heard the mouse myself, I frankly told them by what it had been occasioned, on which they desired me to call my little favourite; I whistled, and it immediately leaped upon my shoulder. I solicited its pardon, but the Officer of the Guard took it into his possession, promising however, to give it to a lady for whose care he would answer. Turning it afterwards loose in his chamber, the mouse soon disappeared, and hid in a hole. But at the usual