He went on, “Put this powder in the wine skin from which you draw. It will not hurt the taste of the wine, but the drunkards will sleep the sooner and sounder. Doubtless there is somewhere on the grounds a large pointed iron bar: is it not so?”
She replied that there was one in the provision cellar.
“It is well. In the course of the day contrive to introduce the bar, with a note which I will give you fastened to it, into the prison through the grated opening. Will you do it?”
She bent her head in assent.
“One other thing—the hardest but most important of all. As soon as the mess room is quiet after the debauch, and the men are lying stupid with drunkenness and drug, steal in on tiptoe and cut off the key from the girdle of the captain, and unlock the dungeon door, if the young man has not yet succeeded in prying it open. The drug is so powerful that I think you can do it safely. If one should happen to rouse, he would, very likely, think you had come to bring more wine and relapse into his stupor. When the young man is free, conduct him to the north gate, which I know you have the key of; where we will meet you with a number of men and conduct you all to the pinnace which by that time will be near the north hamlet. Will you do this also?”
“Oh,” the woman exclaimed with almost an air of distraction, “I am so afraid. Those wicked, frightful men—how can I go in among them!”
Both Seti and Rachel talked long with her; plied her with arguments and promises; and at last had the satisfaction of seeing her more composed and firm, and of hearing her promise that she would do as they wished.
As she rose to go, Rachel grasped her hand and said, “Now be brave for a few hours and your fortune is made. Do all we have said—do just as we have said. Do it for the sake of the innocent, do it for Israel’s sake, do it for our sakes who have some claims upon you, do it for your own sakes for whom this day may do so much.”
As the woman was turning away, Seti held out to her a vial filled with a colored liquid. “As evening comes on pour this into a cup of water and drink it. It is a cordial. It will strengthen and steady you for what you have to do.... And then,” he added to Rachel, “the note and plan to be fastened to the bar!”
She at once wrote thus: “To night we expect that the guard will be stupid with wine and drug. When they are fully quiet after their debauch, see what you can do toward prying open your door. If you cannot succeed, you may still hope that the door will be unlocked shortly from without. Make your way out of the castle by means of the inclosed plan, if no guide appears; and meet your friends at the north gate.—R.”