“And yet,” said Seti, “we must leave some with the vessel. Ten of your stoutest will be enough to go with us; and you may select these for yourselves.... Now let us kneel and pray to the God of Israel, who can do great things for us whereof we shall be glad,” and, to the astonishment of all, he kneeled, and spread forth his hands heavenward, and invoked the blessing of the Most High on their undertaking with the manner of one who saw God and stood in his very presence. Few words, but full of meaning and realization and devotion. And that westering sun looked through the screen of palms on as true and acceptable a prayer meeting as he sees to-day.
In the brief twilight that follows an Egyptian sun setting, they saw a man running down to them from the high road that skirted the bank. It proved to be the old Egyptian custode. He was spent with running, and, when brought up to Seti and Rachel, could hardly speak. But at last he managed to let them know that he was much afraid, from his wife’s growing agitation, that her courage would fail at the critical moment. All appearances promised an agony of fright and incapacity when presence of mind would be most needed. He begged that the lady, who only seemed to have power to soothe and hearten her, would not fail to come with the others. It might save everything.
“I will come,” said Rachel; and, looking at Seti, she added, “I had rather in any case go with you than remain here in suspense.”
He made no reply to her, but said to the Egyptian as he dismissed him with a present: “Do not forget to have the north gate opened early—also the iron door leading to the cellars. Have a lighted lantern ready as soon as the soldiers are quiet.”
The stars came out one by one. Sirius flashed out first; then Aldebaran; then the body and belt and sword of Orion, together with Pleiades and Hyades and the Chambers of the South—with their pageant universe. No moon would appear till after midnight; but such was the stellar effulgence that nothing more seemed needed for such an enterprise.
The flight of Time! Yes, he is sometimes pictured with wings as far stretching and mighty as an archangel’s; and sometimes he seems to us to be plying them with all his might. But not in such circumstances as our friends were in. To eager, restless, suspenseful hearts, hoping the best but fearing the worst, eager to work but for the present able to do nothing, Time has no wings at all, not even feet, but creeps along as if weighted with untold chains. So crept he that night to Seti and Rachel.
But even the snail is at last found to have moved—the most lingering hour that ever crept toward a man, second by second, at last arrives—and so, at last, midnight ached along and found Seti and his company at the north gate. It was unfastened. So far, well.
They listened. They thought they could hear dull strokes at carefully measured intervals. “Get nearer—as near as you can,” said Seti to the peddler, “and see if the sound does not come from the dungeon.”
In a few moments the man returned to say that the prisoner was evidently at work on his door; but that the custodes, both man and wife, were sitting in an apparently helpless state on the steps before the iron door leading to the vaults. He could scarcely get an intelligible word from either of them.