Cliff Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe

by S. Baring-Gould

Leichtweiss now gave himself up to a vagabond life, and as he had of old been associated with the chase, he turned to poaching as a resource. The wide stretch of forests of the Taunus, well stocked with game, and the proximity to such markets as Frankfort and Mainz, offered him a prospect of doing a good business in this line. He managed to induce a wench to associate herself with him, and he dug out a cave of which the description has already been given, in which he made his headquarters, and where he lived and carried on his depredations unmolested for seven years. The spot was so secret and the confusion of rocks there was so great, that he trusted never to be discovered. The main danger lay in smoke betraying him when his fire was lighted, or of his track bring followed in the snow during the winter. But, as already said, for seven years he remained undiscovered, although the keepers of the Duke were well aware that the game in the forests was being shot down and disposed of in the town, and although villagers declared that he had stayed and robbed them. 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. But then conceive of the block thus fissured towering three hundred feet or more sheer up, and having narrow rifts as the passages by which the interior may be penetrated. In the eleventh century sixty knights of the army of Boleslas III., when the latter was driven back by the Emperor Henry II., took refuge in the neighbourhood of Trauterau, and built there a castle, and subsisted on robbery. The captain was a Pole named Nislaf. As they prospered and multiplied, Nislaf divided his company, and placed one portion under Hans Breslauer, who said to his men, "We have a treasure-house in these rocks, only unhappily it is empty. We must pillage the merchants and travellers, and fill it." Nislaf's party fell out with one another, and one, named Alt, led off the discontented and built a fortress, the remains of which may be traced at the highest point above the Adersbach labyrinth. One day the crowing of a cock betrayed where Nislaf had his abode, and troops were sent from Prague to clear the country. Most of the bandits were captured and executed.

In the early part of the nineteenth century a notorious ruffian at the head of a gang lurked in this neighbourhood. His name was Babinsky.

One evening, in the autumn of 1839, a carriage drew up at the outskirts of the Dobrusch forest. A couple of ladies descended from it at the door of a tavern, and asked the Jewish landlady if they could be accommodated with supper and a bed. "We are afraid to proceed," said one of the ladies, "for fear of Babinsky." "Babinsky," answered the hostess, "has never shown his face here."

The ladies were shown into a plain apartment, but were made uneasy by seeing a number of ferocious looking men in the passage and bar. "Who are these?" asked the lady. "Only packmen," replied the landlady. After supper the two ladies were shown into a large bedroom in which at one side was an old-fashioned wardrobe. When left alone they examined this article of furniture, and perceived an unpleasant odour issuing from it. By some means or other they succeeded in forcing open the door, when they perceived that at the bottom of the wardrobe was a trap-door. This they raised, and to their dismay discovered a well or vault, out of which the unpleasant odour issued. They now set fire to some newspaper, and threw it down the hole, and to their unspeakable horror saw by the flames a half-naked corpse. The ladies closed the trap and considered. It was clear that they were in a murderous den, probably controlled by Babinsky. The youngest lady, who had most presence of mind and courage, descended the stairs, opened the guest-room, and said to her coachman, "Hans, it is now half-past nine. This is the hour at which Captain Feldegg, my brother-in-law, promised to start at the head of a military escort to conduct us through the forest. We will leave as soon as you can harness the horses to save him the trouble of coming on so far as this."

Hans finished his glass of wine and rose. The men in the guest-room looked at one another. Before half-an-hour had elapsed the carriage rolled away, and next morning the police were communicated with. It need hardly be said the ladies met with no escort.

A few days later a middle-aged, ragged fellow, with a grinding organ, arrived at the inn, and called for a glass. In the guest-room were the "packmen," and some equally wild-looking girls. The grinding organ was put in requisition, and to its strains they danced till past midnight, when Babinsky himself entered and the dancing ceased. 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. On these occasions they betook themselves to the resort agreed on, by twos and threes. One day as some of them passed along a road, they saw a blind beggar in the hedge, asking for alms. Some cast him coppers, and the organ-grinder slipped into his hand a kreutzer, wrapped in a bit of paper.

That night the tavern was surrounded by the military, and the whole gang, along with Babinsky, was captured. This was on 15th October 1839. The organ-grinder was the Prague detective Hoche.

The trial dragged on for several years; some of the robbers were executed, some sentenced to ten, others to twenty years of imprisonment. No evidence was produced that actually convicted Babinsky of having committed, or been privy to the murders, and he was sentenced to penal servitude for life.

I was rambling in Bohemia and tracing the Riesen Gebirge in 1886. On reaching home I read what follows from the Vienna Correspondent of the Standard. "At the little market town of Leitomischl in Bohemia," at the foot of the continuation of the Giant Mountains I had been exploring, "an innkeeper and his wife and son have just been arrested by the police on a charge of having, during the last twenty-five years, murdered no fewer than eleven persons. The victims were all travellers who had put up for a night at his house, and who had shown that they were in possession of ready cash. For a considerable time the suspicions of the police had been aroused by the sudden disappearance of various visitors staying at this inn. Among the latest cases was a cattle dealer who, after visiting the market, was returning home with the proceeds of the sale of a herd of cattle, and a young baron who had won a large sum in a public lottery. After putting up at the inn in question, these men, like others before them, were never heard of again. The very last case was that of the sudden disappearance of a lady, who was undoubtedly murdered and robbed by the arrested persons."