Already a question was trembling on Gabriel Nietzel's lips. He wished to ask, "Can he by any possibility be saved?" But she had said, "Do not speak to me," and, obedient to his oath, he remained dumb, took up the trunk, and followed Rebecca, who had tenderly lifted the child from its crib and had just gone out of the door. Swiftly they passed side by side through the streets, which were still deserted, for all loungers and street idlers were still tarrying in Broad Street or on the castle square. Many a time Gabriel cast a look of questioning entreaty upon Rebecca, but she saw it not; she seemed to see nothing whatever, for her eyes were gazing afar off; like a somnambulist, she strode along, and even when the baby in her arms began to cry she took no notice of it, nor sought to comfort it with tender, soothing words. At last they had passed the gate behind the willow bank, and found themselves without the city. There stood the wagon waiting for them, covered with a tilt of gray canvas. The Jewish boy who sat on the back seat under the canvas awning had fallen asleep, resting his head against the great wooden arch to which the cover was secured. The two lean little horses were greedily eating of the oats in the dirty bags around their necks. Not a creature was to be seen. The wretched conveyance had excited no attention whatever, and caused not a single passer-by to pause.
Rebecca stepped up to the wagon and gently laid the child in the straw with which the vehicle was filled. Then, with a silent wave of the hand, she ordered Gabriel to set down the trunk he was carrying. He did so, and Rebecca took a key out of her pocket, knelt down before the trunk, and sought hither and thither among its contents. First she took from the bottom of the trunk a packet with five seals, and, as she hastily stuck it in her bosom, her eye was uplifted to heaven with a glance of glowing gratitude. Then she took out a white dress and a long white veil, carefully concealing these things under the great black mantle which enveloped her figure. Finally, she locked the trunk and handed the key to Gabriel.
"Place the trunk gently in the wagon, so as not to wake the child," she said. Gabriel silently obeyed, and then, standing on the footboard of the wagon, reached down his hand to her, as if he would ask her to follow.
She shook her head quickly. "Come, Gabriel," said she, "come, let us step across and talk under yon tree. The child sleeps and David Cohen sleeps, too. Nobody hears us. Come."
With hasty steps they crossed over to the great linden tree which stood at the side of the road. The birds sang and hopped about amid its dense foliage, and the hot sunbeams drew forth the most delicious fragrance from the blossoms with which each branch was laden. But the pair who walked up and down under the tree heeded neither the singing of the birds nor the perfume of the flowers. They were alone with one another and the sad, gloomy thoughts with which both their souls were filled.
"Gabriel," said Rebecca, recovering breath, "I will go to free you from the stain of blood, for if it remain it would not merely poison the Electoral Prince but your whole life. My father gave you only the half of my dowry, as he called it. The other half he retained and gave me. After he had presented you with the poison, and I was alone with him in his chamber, he held out to me the sacred volume, and required me to take three oaths, by the memory of my murdered mother and by the hatred and revenge which we had sworn to the whole world upon her beloved body. First, I must swear that I would never abjure the faith of my fathers and become a Christian. Secondly, I must swear that I would rear the child that God would give me in our own religion, and never while I lived consent to its being made a Christian. Thirdly, I must swear to preserve the sealed packet he intrusted to me as my greatest treasure, my most precious possession, and only to tell you of it in case of the most extreme danger and necessity; that I was only to make use of the contents to purchase wealth or happiness. 'I have given death into your dear Gabriel's hand,' he said, 'into your hand, my daughter, I give life, and surely that is something much more rare and precious. He has the poisons; I give you the antidotes. They are worth tons of gold; they are my most precious treasure, and twenty years have I labored ere I discovered them. When I succeeded, I thanked God for this glorious discovery, and then thrice I swore upon the sacred volume, with my face turned to the East and with loud voice, that never should a Christian obtain these priceless antidotes through me, that never would I impart knowledge of them to a Christian. I will keep my oath, and divulge the holy secret only to you, my Rebecca. Guard it in your bosom under three sacred seals, and only in the most perilous hour of your life break the seal, which I herewith lay upon your lips. But never may you transfer this precious treasure to other hands; no Christian may ever touch it. Would you save life, then you must do it yourself, and only from your own hands may the one smitten with death receive life.'
"Those were the words spoken by my father, when he handed me the sealed packet. Then he instructed me how to apply the contents, and what I would have to do in order to render ineffective the three poisons given you. 'Only,' said he to me,' the antidote must be administered before four-and-twenty hours have elapsed since the poison was swallowed, and then, still twenty-four hours later, the antidote must be used for the second time.' Gabriel, my best-beloved, now is the most perilous hour of my life, and I have loosened the seal which my father pressed upon my lips. I have the antidote for the inflammatory powder."
"Ah, Rebecca, and you will give it to me?" asked Gabriel, seizing both her hands and looking into her lovely face with beaming eyes.
She slowly and solemnly shook her head. "You are a Christian," she said. "I have sworn to my father that no Christian should touch the precious treasure, that no hands but my own should apply the remedy he intrusted to me. Gabriel, out of love for me you gave the Prince into the jaws of death. Out of love for you I shall restore him to life."
"Rebecca!" he cried, "how will you do it—how can you accomplish it? Only from your hands the Prince is to receive life? That means, you will yourself apply the remedy? You will go to him? You would return to the city, venture into the castle? Know you not that Schwarzenberg has his spies everywhere; that every lackey in the castle is bribed by him and in his interests; that he knows what happens there night and day? Do you not know that, Rebecca? Did you not yourself often tell me so, when you visited the castellan's wife, who loved you, because she, too, was a Venetian, and could speak her native language with you. Did she not tell you in confidence that Count Schwarzenberg was her real lord and master, and that she herself every morning repeated to the count's secretary all that came under her observation in the castle? And now would you venture into that castle, that den of lions!"