"Surely the sun is not up--?"
"We must be before the sun!" said Ebbo, who was on his feet,
beginning to dress himself. "Hush, and come! Do not wake the
mother. It must be ere she or aught else be astir! Thy prayers--I
tell thee this is a work as good as prayer."
Half awake, and entirely bewildered, Friedel dipped his finger in the
pearl mussel shell of holy water over their bed, and crossed his own
brow and his brother's; then, carrying their shoes, they crossed
their mother's chamber, and crept down stairs. Ebbo muttered to his
brother, "Stand thou still there, and pray the saints to keep her
asleep;" and then, with bare feet, moved noiselessly behind the
wooden partition that shut off his grandmother's box-bedstead from
the rest of the hall. She lay asleep with open mouth, snoring
loudly, and on her pillow lay the bunch of castle keys, that was
always carried to her at night. It was a moment of peril when Ebbo
touched it; but he had nerved himself to be both steady and
dexterous, and he secured it without a jingle, and then, without
entering the hall, descended into a passage lit by a rough opening
cut in the rock.
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