"But how will you do it?"
"The curate of Tissaret is here," whispered the hussar. "When he saw that Viola was bound to a post, and in the open air, and in November, too, with but an armful of straw for him to lie on; and his poor wife and children shivering and shaking by his side;—and I tell you, sir, fine children they are, as fine as any you can see; but, as I told you, when the curate saw them, he said it was a shame, and he would not stand it, and the law was that the prisoner ought not to be kept in the open air at this time of the year. Says I to myself, when the curate sermonised them, says I, 'That's as lucky a thing as can be!' for, to tell you the truth, I had my doubts about our getting him off, if they'd keep him in that cursed shed. The great donkeys have put four lamps round him, seeing they wish to watch every one of his movements. But, of course, I didn't say a word about it. I only told the steward that there was no harm in what the curate said; for, after all, it is a safe thing to have your prisoner locked up and provided for."
"But what for?" asked Kalman, impatiently; "of what use can it be to us, if they lock Viola up?"
"Locking your prisoner up is a capital thing in its way," said the hussar. "When your prisoner is by himself, where no one sees him, he can do as he likes, and there are few things he will not do. But if he is watched by half-a-dozen men and more, let him be ever so stout a man, it cows him down. At the least of his motions, he's got a dozen hands upon him, and he's laughed at to boot. But if they put Viola into the chaff-loft, which I understand they think of doing, they may whistle for him, that's all."
"But how the deuce will you do it?" asked Völgyeshy, whose temper was not proof to the old soldier's circumstantial explanations.
"In this way, your worship," whispered the old hussar, in a still lower voice: "the chaff-loft is next to the steward's house, and there's a door between the granary and the steward's loft, isn't there?"
"Yes, so there is. What next?" said Kalman.
"As I said before, there's a door from the granary to the steward's loft—(I'd not like that door, at all, if the corn were mine)—but that's neither here nor there; it serves the steward's purpose, I dare say, and at present it serves ours."
"Go on, man!" cried Kalman.
"The key of the granary," continued the hussar, "is in your lady mother's hands, and it's you who'll get it for us?"