Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/337

 treated, and a champion of liberty who might still be so useful to a great cause? Krüger selected two young men, well known to him, who were in friendly intercourse with some of the officers to be taken into our confidence. Their names were Poritz and Leddihn, vigorous, strong, and true men, who confessed themselves willing to render any aid required of them in so good a work as the liberation of such a prisoner as Kinkel. They agreed to bring to me the one of the penitentiary guards who, they believed, might be most easily persuaded. Thus they introduced to me in a little beerhouse, in which I had a room to myself, a turnkey who had been, like most of his colleagues, a non-commissioned officer in the army and was now supporting a large family upon a very small salary. Poritz and Leddihn had vouched to him for my good faith, and he listened quietly to what I had to say. I presented myself as a traveler for a business house, who was closely related to the Kinkel family. I described to him the misery of the wife and the children, and how anxious they were, lest with the poor convict fare he would gradually waste away in body and mind. Would it not be possible to smuggle into Kinkel's cell from time to time a bit of meat or a glass of wine to keep up in a measure his strength, until the king's grace would take pity on him?

The turnkey thought Kinkel's lot indeed very deplorable. It would be a good work to alleviate it a little—perhaps not impossible, but perilous. He would consider what might be done. At the close of our conversation I slipped a ten-thaler note into his hand with the request that he buy with it some nourishing food for Kinkel if he could transmit it to him without danger. I intimated that business affairs required me to leave Spandau, but that I would return in a few days, to hear