Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/275

 therefore, very much relieved when finally, after ten o'clock, the wooing vows died away in the distance.

Now we counted the minutes as the decisive moment approached. When it struck eleven Neustädter slipped out of the opening in the plank wall, stepped upon the pile of wood, and jumped lightly to the ground. I followed him. My legs had become very stiff in consequence of my lying for days and nights immovable on my back, and as I put my foot upon the wood several sticks fell down with a great noise. A moment later I heard not far away the tread of a patrol. I only had time to whisper back to my faithful Adam that he should remain until the patrol should have passed, and then follow me. I succeeded in reaching the little house before the patrol turned the corner of the lane. Neustädter was already there, and Adam came a few minutes later.

“The patrol passed quietly by,” said he, “and they snored so loud in the shed that any other noise would hardly have been heard.”

The wife of our friend in the little house had prepared a precious repast of beef broth, with rice, for us. After this and a dish of boiled meat and roast potatoes had refreshed our strength, we set out through the garden for the sewer. The moon was shining brightly, and we kept cautiously in the shadows of the hedges. But when we arrived at the ditch close by the mouth of the sewer a new fright awaited us. A sentinel was pacing to and fro just beyond the sewer, hardly thirty feet away from it. We halted and stooped under the hedge. There was but one thing to do. As the man turned his back upon us and walked to the other side, one of us was to slip cautiously into the sewer. The two others had to do the same. In a few minutes we were reassembled in the darkness of our refuge. We crawled ahead and found our old bench again, where we rested