BEIJING — Injuries suffered in the course of a daring nighttime escape. A covert appeal from underground activists to top State Department officials for humanitarian protection. A car chase through the streets of Beijing to spirit a dissident to safety inside the fortified American Embassy.

Those are among the new details that emerged Wednesday from the 10-day saga of Chen Guangcheng, the blind rights lawyer who escaped house arrest in rural Shandong Province, and then, after managing to reach Beijing and come under American protection, was the subject of a series of highly unusual secret negotiations with the Chinese government.

The story involved intrigue, heroics and ultimately what some of the people involved called a betrayal. And it is a tale, related by activists, friends of Mr. Chen’s and embassy officials, that so far does not have a clear ending, with Mr. Chen expressing new fears about his safety if he remains in China.

But regardless of the ultimate outcome, the tale of what happened to Mr. Chen and how he was handled by the Americans is likely to be remembered for years to come as one of the most dramatic episodes in the long, torturous history of relations between the United States and China.