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As Adersbach and Wickelsdorf lie on the frontier of Bohemia and Silesia, the existence of this region of cliffs and natural refuges had been kept secret by the natives, who looked upon it as a secure hiding- place for themselves and their chattels when the storm of war swept over the Riesen Gebirge.
These allegations were, however, never proved. When he was at last captured, he was tried and sentenced to be placed in the stocks at Wiesbaden in the market. Two days after he hung himself in prison. In the chapter on Souterrains I have spoken of the Adersbach and Wickelsdorf rock labyrinths, without mentioning that they have served as a haunt for robbers.
I will now deal with them from this point of view. Take a piece of veined marble, and suppose all the white veins of felspar washed clear, leaving the block cleft in every direction from top to bottom, and all the cleavages converging to one point and through that one point only, on the Wickelsdorf side, is access to be had to the labyrinth.
It had been the same during the Thirty Years' War, and again in the Seven Years' War, when the invaders found not a living soul, and contented themselves with destroying the crops and burning the villages and farms. Even the Government officials had disappeared. Whither had they gone? Into the rock labyrinths of Adersbach and Wickelsdorf, each accessible only through a single gap closed by a door.
The organ-grinder had so ingratiated himself into the favour of the robbers, that they resolved on retaining him as the musician of the band. He was conveyed across country till they reached some such a rocky retreat as that of Wickelsdorf or Adersbach, and there spent three weeks, only allowed to accompany the band when they were going to have a frolic.
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