What was really the matter with Ráby the police never learned; but we can tell the reader.
When at about three hours after midnight, they had brought him to the Assembly House, the whole gang of his enemies was awaiting him, including the gaoler.
He was received with a shout of derisive laughter, as he came into the room, thick with tobacco-smoke.
"So the Emperor has given you decorations, has he?" thus they jeered at him. "Well, we'll see what sort of ornaments we can procure for your worship," and such like remarks, were freely fired off at him.
But Ráby bore all the jeers of his tormentors in a dignified silence, and quietly submitted to the searching process, whereby he was stripped of all his valuables, and fetters slipped over his wrists and ankles, the gold lace being cut off from his new coat so that he might not hang himself with it! Then he was led back into the cell he had formerly occupied, and left to himself.
But, he reflected, his captivity could not last long. The two police-officers must be still there, and when all was said, they were the masters. And failing all else, had not the Emperor himself promised to come? Up till then, he would have patience. The visit of his friends on the following day did not give him much hope that their help would avail him.
On the third day, the prison doctor sought him out, and with the help of the gaoler, began to subject him to a long process of disinfecting, which he said, was necessary for every prisoner who came from across the frontier, seeing that in Turkey the oriental plague was raging.
We have seen how the two Viennese officers were smoked out of the city. This left the coast clear for Ráby's examination the following day. His earlier trial had taken place before the district commissioner as a political offender: now he was haled before the ordinary assizes as a common criminal.
The indictment which set forth how Ráby by the help of diabolic arts, had forcibly broken out of custody, and fled to another country, was read. It called for five and twenty years' solitary imprisonment, together with public chastisement; which should allow of his being at appointed intervals set in the public stocks, with a placard showing the nature of his crime hung round his neck.
Ráby, in his defence, demanded that the judges should call one of the twenty men who had forcibly seized him the night of his flight; this was, he said, exacted by the Emperor in his instructions as to the trial.
Laskóy struck the table with his fist. "That is not true," he said, "it is not in his Majesty's instructions."
"I have seen it myself," said Ráby, "the Emperor gave it into my own hands to read."
At these words there was a perfect outburst of wrath and indignation from the whole company, so that Ráby could not speak for the uproar; when the noise had quieted down, he went on:
"The men who freed me are not forthcoming as witnesses. But there are two at least, who must know what happened that night, and this is the heyduke who stood before the door of my cell, and the other who kept the gate. Though I did not see them I know what their names were, for I heard the castellan address them as Sipos and Nagy."
"Let them be brought in," said Laskóy to the castellan with a meaning grimace.
But it was Ráby's turn to be astonished when the witnesses entered. For there before him, stood his two travelling companions, the pretended pig-dealer, Kurovics, and his comrade, who had accompanied him to Vienna! And these, it appeared, were the two heydukes who had been commissioned to play this trick upon their unsuspecting victim. Ráby's brain fairly reeled at the thought of the lying fraud to which he had been forced to lend himself.
But the examination of Sipos was beginning. "It seems you were the guard at the door of the prisoner's cell, the night of his escape?" questioned the judge. "Do you know what happened?"
The witness groaned, and murmured something incoherent.
"Tell us what you know. The truth, out with it!" as the man hesitated.
"Ah, how can I say it!" exclaimed the fellow, while the gaoler shook his fist at him menacingly.
"I'll tell all," he said, "just as it happened. The gaoler ordered four and twenty of us heydukes to disguise ourselves as Turks, then to break open the door of the prisoner's cell, and put on him a peasant girl's dress and escort him to Vienna in this disguise. He gave us money for the journey, and told us the Pesth magistracy had ordered it."
At this outspoken testimony, Ráby could hardly contain himself, he stamped on the floor till his irons rang again. So the whole intrigue was manifest! His enemies themselves had hatched this conspiracy against him, and now they dared to condemn the victim of their own wicked plot!
He attempted to protest, but the whole crew shouted him down. "Hold your peace, traitor!" they cried! "Hold your peace! Not a word will we hear from you!"
And their anger was not less hot against the witness whom they called a liar and false swearer, and then and there ordered him to receive fifty strokes with the lash, and this was Sipos' reward for telling the truth.
"Let the other witness appear," cried Laskóy. "Now, János Nagy, you are an honest man, and will tell us what happened, so out with it!"
Nagy, otherwise the false Kurovics, had the example of his comrade before him, and bethought himself in time of what he might expect if he was too truthful, so he took his line accordingly.
"This is the true history, your worships. When, on the sixth of December last, I was keeping guard before the door of the gate of the prison, and my comrade stood before the prisoner's cell, I heard a loud cracking noise; then the door of Mr. Ráby's dungeon flew open, and he came out in a fiery chariot drawn by six black cats, whilst on the box sat a demon in a red dolman, who gave first my comrade, and then me, such a switch in the face with his long tail, that we could hear and see nothing further—so stunned were we. And then with a noise like thunder, the prisoner disappeared in a flash."
Ráby was astounded—not at the witness, but at his hearers.
"Is it possible, is it credible," he cried, "that you gentlemen, can accept such testimony as this?"
"Be silent, and don't interrupt the witness," yelled Laskóy, "we don't want you to teach us. You know we have laws against witchcraft, and we mean to enforce them. Mr. notary," he cried, turning to Tárhalmy, "please take the depositions of the witness."
And Ráby saw with amazement that Tárhalmy did not hesitate to do as he was bidden. And suddenly there flashed across the prisoner what Mariska had written to him. Here the wise and fools alike seemed to be leagued against him. In vain he protested his innocence in the Emperor's name, and that of the law and common-sense: it availed nothing. Finally they led him out of the room while they debated on his sentence.
It was not long before he was conducted back again to hear it. Of the several indictments against him, several had not been verified, but one at least they indeed had proved, and that was, that by diabolic agency he had escaped from the dungeon. That was enough to condemn him, and "death by the axe" was awarded accordingly.
When Ráby heard it, he could contain his indignation no longer:
"Gentlemen, and you my most worshipful judges," he cried, "hear me before I depart, for there is no tribunal on earth so tyrannical that it will not allow the criminal to justify himself. Why am I condemned? Why have such punishments, ending with the death-penalty itself, been meted out to me? Why have I suffered thus? Simply because I strove to heal the woes of the oppressed; just because the Emperor has sent me hither to inquire into the grievances of the people, whose cry has reached him. The poor were no rebels against the law; they sought only justice, and I desired to help them to attain it. Do you remember what authority is given to you, when you are placed in the seat of law? Is it not a divine commission to defend the right of the individual, as of the people, alike? If you are confident in the success of your cause, I am equally so in that of mine, for my conscience is clear, I have broken neither the laws of God nor of man, and to my convictions I will never be false. I only ask one thing for my people, that they may be freed from the yoke of the oppressor. Is that a crime deserving the death penalty? Well, let my head fall; my blood be on those who shed it!"
Several of the judges could not restrain their tears. Tárhalmy hid his face in his hands; was it that he could not face the prisoner?
Ráby's last words rang with such intense sincerity that not one of those present had dared to interrupt his speech. Laskóy was the only one to speak when the accused had ended his defence, and all he said was, "Take the prisoner away!"
"I appeal then against the judgment of the court," said Ráby as he was being led out.
"That is permitted; meantime, he who is under sentence of death must be heavily ironed till the hour of execution."
"Against that likewise I protest," said Ráby firmly. And they led him out and called for the prison locksmith.
Up till now, Ráby had been rigidly fettered, in that his right hand had been fastened to his left foot, while another chain had bound his left hand to his right foot. Now as an addition to this came the whole equipment involved in "heavy irons." Two chains, consisting of six iron rings linked together, weighing in all about a quarter of a hundred weight, were now produced for the prisoner.
These fetters were no longer fastened, as the lighter ones had been, with a padlock, but were to be rivetted on an anvil, so that they could only be sawn asunder when taken off.
For the operation the prisoner was led into the yard of the Assembly House, much to the excitement of the townspeople who gathered to witness so unusual a spectacle, including all the women-folk. They were aghast at seeing a young and richly clad gentleman being loaded with heavy irons. In such a scene the crowd is on the side of the criminal, and they were now.
When they saw Ráby forced to sit down on the paving-stones, and heard him groan with pain as his already fettered ankle received the first stroke of the heavy hammer on the anvil, a cry burst from the bystanders, and they could not restrain their indignation.
"Poor fellow! What has he done to deserve it?" they asked, and the women wept freely. One of them took off her kerchief, and, kneeling down beside him, was fain to bind it round the ankle-bone, so that the iron should not cut it too severely, but the gaoler sternly thrust her away.
"What do condemned criminals want with that sort of thing, you stupid? Away with you and your silly feelings. Would you have his fetters lined with velvet? He'll soon get accustomed to them, I'll warrant you."
And he brutally tore the kerchief off Ráby's ankle.
When at last the work was done, the prisoner had to rise. But this was easier said than done, for with his fettered hands and feet, he was almost powerless to move. Small wonder he fell back in the attempt.
Janosics laughed aloud.
But it is no laughing matter when a man in irons tries to walk.
Meantime, the women became more sympathetic than ever with the prisoner, and openly railed at the heydukes.
"You murderers! It is a sin and a shame to treat him thus! And such a pretty gentleman too! If we were only men we would soon teach you gaolers to mend your manners. Why you are worse than the Turks themselves."
"Drive the women out of the yard," cried Janosics furiously, "and then let us be getting on, for the cage is ready for the bird."
And some of the heydukes promptly drove out the women, while the rest looked after Ráby. In one of them, who helped him to rise, Ráby recognised the man who had brought him the pitcher with the false bottom when he was in prison. The man also evidently pitied him in his stumbling efforts to drag one foot before the other, and showed him how he could best do it by carefully measuring each step forward. But the pain of the irons which had already begun to cut into his flesh, was well-nigh unbearable, and it was with the greatest difficulty he staggered to the cell prepared for him—a small damp dark hole with a little grated orifice for air through which the falling snow was drifting.
No stove warmed the frozen depths of his dungeon, but there was a huge stake in the wall to which was affixed an iron chain: to this the fetters of the prisoner were made fast, so that he could stir no further than the small tether it allowed, and had to lie or crouch day and night in the heap of straw, which was his only bed. An earthen pitcher and a wooden bowl held respectively the drinking water and black bread which were to last him a week, for having provided them, they needed not to trouble further for some days about the inmate of the cell. And there was no pitcher this time with a false bottom!
Now Ráby was to know what it meant to be a captive indeed.
Poor Ráby, he was a prisoner in such surroundings that they would have served for the wildest page of romance. No sound came to him from the outer world, as he lay there chained to the blank wall in his living grave—the underground dungeon whose door no key opened. Yet for all this he was not forgotten.
In the deathlike stillness of the night he heard what sounded like a noise of scratching in the roof of his cell, as if someone were trying to bore through the ceiling.
All at once the sound ceased, and from above he heard a well-remembered voice: "Poor Ráby!" it murmured.
At the sound, a thrill of joy shook the prisoner, in spite of his fetters; it spoke to him of life and hope.
"Can you hear me?" asked the voice.
"Perfectly," answered Ráby.
"Trust in God, He will deliver you, He will not let you be lost. If to-morrow you hear a sound of knocking, give heed. Good-bye."
Then there was again stillness. But Ráby slept in his heavy fetters rocked by that hope, as peacefully as a child in its mother's arms.
When he awoke at daybreak, it seemed like a dream, till he was reminded of its reality by a light tapping on the ceiling of his cell.
And then, just over his head, there appeared a long hollow cane thrust down from a small aperture in the roof, and it came lower and lower till it reached his fettered hands.
"Have you got it?" asked the voice. "If so, open it carefully."
Ráby carefully opened the sealed end and found a minute phial of ink, and an equally slender pen made from a crow's feather. Round it was rolled a sheet of paper.
"Write, and I will wait to take it," said the voice, and the prisoner, as might be imagined, was not long in obeying the request of his unseen monitress. Carefully and minutely, in spite of his fettered hand, he traced on the paper a letter to the Emperor, telling him all that had happened, and in the relief of giving this welcome vent to his feelings, he forgot his wretched surroundings. When it was done he rolled up the paper, tucked it in the cane, and pushed it up again through the ceiling.
On the evening of the next day he heard the voice again: "Dear Ráby, take courage. Your letter has gone to Vienna by the Jew Abraham."
Ráby's heart warmed at this news, it would mean at the most only a week more of his present captivity—and for that time he had bread and water enough.
Meantime, before the said week came to an end, his Excellency the governor sent for Mr. Laskóy.
"We are in a nice quandary, my friend, and you will have to get us out of it; hear what has happened," and his Excellency paused as if to emphasise what was to follow. "Three days after Ráby was imprisoned, the Emperor summoned me to Vienna. I went as fast as posts could carry me, to hear, as his first question: 'What have the authorities done with Ráby?'
"I told him that Mathias Ráby had already had a fair hearing before the magistracy, but that owing to a dangerous sickness which had suddenly overtaken him, he was now in the hands of the doctor, pending being confronted with his accusers. The Emperor did not interrupt me, but when I had done, out he comes with a letter written by your prisoner in spite of his irons and fast barred door, setting forth his grievances to his master in very plain terms. And I can assure you he didn't spare either of us."
Laskóy was petrified with amazement. "That means," pursued his Excellency, "that Ráby has found ways and means of writing to the Kaiser from his dungeon. When I had read the letter through, the Emperor said: 'Mark my words, if Mathias Ráby is not released from prison by the day after to-morrow (you will be back in Pesth by then), I shall give orders that his custodians be themselves arrested and put in the Dark Tower for the rest of their lives on bread and water. So you see what you have to reckon with, and the best thing you can do is to set the prisoner free at once.'"
The lieutenant did not want urging, he rode to the prison in hot haste, and demanded to see the head-gaoler. No sooner had Janosics appeared, bearing his huge bunch of keys, than Laskóy sprang at him straight away like a wild cat, seized him by the ears, and banged his head against the door unmercifully, till the keys rattled again in his hands.
"Take that for your pains," he cried, "I'll teach you how to look after your prisoners! What do you mean by letting Ráby write to the Emperor from his dungeon?"
The castellan was dumbfoundered with pain and amazement. "All I can say is, your worship," he cried, rubbing his head, "that Ráby must be in league with the Devil."
And though all the authorities of Pesth put their heads together, they could not solve the mystery. The only thing they were clear upon was that Janosics deserved fifty strokes with the lash, a punishment he promptly received.
The following day his Excellency went to the Assembly House, and two letters were put into his hands by Laskóy with a crafty smile. Both were in Ráby's handwriting. The one was dated from Szent-Endre; it contained an expression of the writer's gratitude for his release by the Pesth authorities, and his willingness to abide henceforth by the laws of the land. Further, it announced his determination to withdraw from public life and attend to his private concerns, and the writer begged that the accompanying letter, if it met with the governor's approbation, might be, after reading, forwarded by special messenger to the Emperor.
The second missive contained a formal admission by the writer that he had been led astray by false evidence, that the story of the treasure-chest was a lying invention of the deceased "pope"; further it expressed his regret at having caused the Pesth magistracy so much inconvenience, and his determination not to return to Vienna but to pass the rest of his life in the country, to which end he begged the pension allotted to him might be sent to him at Szent-Endre.
His Excellency immediately dispatched this missive to Vienna, and drove back home. You do not imprison Pesth people so easily in the Dark Tower.
Yes, it was all very cleverly arranged, but perhaps the reader will not be surprised to learn that Ráby still languished in his dungeon a closer captive than ever. At the discovery of Ráby's letter to the Emperor, a contingent of heydukes had visited the prisoner in his cell, searched the dungeon for ink and paper, but in vain, for the thick rime which glazed the ceiling, effectually hid the small hole at the top. The result was that, failing to get any light on the mystery, Ráby was fettered closer than before, the door barred and sealed with the lieutenant's own private seal, and the prisoner was once more left to the solitude of his cell.
And as for the supposed letters, why they were easily accounted for by the fact that an accomplished forger then in prison, who was anxious to please his judges to the best of his ability, which was great, had written them at their bidding.
So Ráby waited till his good angel again provided him, by means of the hole in the ceiling, with ink and paper in the cane, but this time he only wrote the words, "I am still here, your Majesty," and signed it with his blood, for his foot was bleeding profusely through the chain cutting into it. But even this was assuaged by his protectress by means of a linen bandage concealed in the cane, with which Ráby was enabled to bind up his ankle.
Before the week was out, his dungeon-door was opened one morning, and an unusually large allowance of bread, and two pitchers of water were thrust into his cell. Then the man he had seen once before, whom he recognised as a mason, appeared with his assistants, and with their help, took his cell door off its hinges, and proceeded to brick it up. And through Ráby's mind ran old stories he had read of people being walled up alive in the Middle Ages, and a shuddering horror fell upon him, at the fate reserved for him.
The Emperor received both of Ráby's letters—the forged and the genuine one—nearly at the same time, for the latter had been sent by express post. Shortly afterwards, it became known that his Majesty was going to pay a visit to Pesth, ostensibly to review some troops. It was this news that had hastened the walling up of Ráby's cell. The Emperor was not to find him when he came, and when the Kaiser had gone, they meant to restore the dungeon-door to its place. For they did not intend to kill their victim outright by burying him alive.
In order to dry the fresh masonry, they often let the window in the corridor stand open, and so thick was the rime that you could not see the walls for it. Nay, the hair and beard of the captive were white too with it, and from the frozen ceiling, the icicles dropped down upon him as he lay on his straw couch. But the greatest misfortune induced by the cold was that he became so hoarse, he could not answer the voice from above, but could only rattle his chains to show that he still lived.
On the day of the Emperor's arrival, the voice ceased, and he heard men's footsteps above, as if re-arranging the room, in view perhaps of the imperial visit.
In fact the Kaiser had come, and by mid-day had inspected his troops and was sitting down to a frugal mid-day meal in the Assembly House, as was his custom, alone, giving orders the while to the crowd of aides-de-camp, and the various functionaries who came and went. He left untasted the glass of old Tokay, poured out for him by the obsequious Laskóy in a glass of rare Venetian crystal, for to the date of its vintage he was quite indifferent.
"And now," said his Majesty, when he had finished, "tell me what has happened to my commissioner, Mr. Mathias Ráby?"
"Sire, he has gone back some time since to his home in Szent-Endre, and we had a letter of thanks from him just lately."
"I have seen that letter," returned the Emperor drily, "likewise another written from the dungeon of the Assembly House, wherein I learn he is still a prisoner."
"Ah, sire, that is easily explained," answered the lieutenant airily. "The fact is that we had imprisoned at the same time as Ráby, a renowned forger, who has been deceiving even your Majesty by carefully forged letters in your commissioner's handwriting."
"What could he have gained by that?" said the Emperor.
"Probably he knew," returned Laskóy, "that Ráby enjoyed your Majesty's favour, and reckoned that, as you were coming to visit the Pesth prison in person, he would thus recall himself to your Majesty and gain a hearing from you."
"That reminds me," answered the Emperor, "that I have not yet seen the prison, so I will trouble you to lead the way."
And Laskóy proceeded to conduct the imperial guest to the dungeons, even to the most noisome, regardless of the pestilential atmosphere which met the visitor. The Emperor had every door unlocked, and insisted on seeing everything, and it was plain from his sharp scrutiny that he did not trust his guide.
Then he inspected the cells where the "noble" culprits were confined, and among them that formerly tenanted by Ráby. The bed which the prisoner had occupied, was duly pointed out to the Emperor, and then he proceeded to inspect the rest of the cells in order.
Three times did he actually pass the door of Ráby's dungeon (and the prisoner could hear the clink of his spurs overhead), yet did not discover the one he sought. And no suspicion crossed the captive's mind from behind his walled-up door that his would-be deliverer was close at hand.
The deception had been only too well carried out. Not even by coming in person to free him, as the Emperor had promised his emissary, could he succeed in delivering him.
And there was not a single man of them all who would point to Ráby's cell, and say boldly, "There lies the man whom you are seeking."
As for Mariska, she had been sent that very day to her aunt's at Buda, for some of the officers had been quartered at the head notary's, and it was no longer the place for the daughter of the house.
And the Emperor went that day into camp, but Ráby still languished in his dungeon.
Ráby's persecutors were getting tired of their unavailing efforts to break the prisoner's spirit, so they determined on softer measures, and three days after the Emperor had left Pesth, his dungeon was broken open, and Laskóy and Petray arrived to make personal investigations into their victim's state.
Truly it was a pitiable spectacle that met their gaze when at last a breach was made in the masonry and they penetrated into the cell. A wasted and attenuated figure they saw half-buried under the snow that had drifted in on to his straw bed through the grating—snow that was stained red with the blood that had streamed from the captive's wounds.
"Take the irons off!" ordered Petray, "and wrap the prisoner up in warm coverings."
And the order was not unnecessary, for it was some time ere the locksmith could be found, and, meantime the victim was benumbed nearly to death with cold.
Even the locksmith, as he filed off the fetters from Ráby's bleeding wrists and ankles, could not suppress a murmur of pity, for he was only a public servant who did as he was told, and had a kind heart.
When at last Ráby was freed from his chains, he could not stand, and had to be carried by two heydukes to a neighbouring cell, which was one of those he had formerly occupied.
"Let him rest for a little," ordered Petray, "and then I will have a word with him, and meantime, you may bring him some egg-broth with wine."
And the broth revived the wretched prisoner, half-starved and frozen as he was, with new life, and he eagerly swallowed it. He was conscious of a feeling of anger against himself for thus being so ready to accept alleviation for his miserable body, that so little emulated his strong, unconquered soul. One thing alone lightened the memories of his sufferings, and that was the voice that had cheered his loneliness with its encouraging whisper. And lulled by the unaccustomed warmth, he sank into a comforting slumber, and at his awakening, only had his bandaged limbs to remind him of his irons. Yet the remembrance that it was to Petray, of all people, that he owed this amelioration of his misery, stung him as with a lash.
But just then the door opened, and in walked his enemy himself. He came up to Ráby's couch and asked the prisoner how he had slept, and whether he felt better. But the captive answered these hypocritical enquiries by never so much as a word.
"You have to thank me for this change, you know," pursued Petray, "for I have been chosen as your advocate when you appeal against your sentence."
"What?" cried Ráby, in his excitement springing up, in spite of his weakness, from the couch. "You to be my defender! You who are already gravely impeached in the indictment I have formulated! Why such a false position is impossible; it is you who must stand at the bar. Do you mean to say you, who are my worst enemy, are entrusted with my defence?"
Petray smiled. He knew well enough he had a sick man to deal with, who was physically incapable of attacking him.
"Now you see how unjust it makes you, this misunderstanding. You shall know that the accused must have a counsel when he is confronted by the indictment. There are two of us, myself and the lieutenant, who have to take your case in hand; which do you prefer, him or me?"
"Neither," cried Ráby indignantly. "I am my own counsel, and I know how to defend myself, and do not need any of your help."
"My dear friend, be reasonable; see how unjust this is," said Petray in a wheedling voice. "You think I would defend you badly. But it is because I want to prevent you running your head against a wall that I am doing this. Listen, I'll read you the points of your defence."
And Petray proceeded to read the document in which he had set forth Ráby's case with such cunning adroitness, that black appeared white in his representations, and white wholly black. Such a web of sophistries, in fact, had he woven, that it had been difficult for a hearer to disentangle the truth. In it all the guilt was laid at the door of the dead "pope," and Ráby appeared as a too confiding victim of his wiles and misrepresentations. It was a tissue of false statements, yet Ráby listened to the end.
Then he said indignantly: "So you really believe I need all that for my justification, do you, that the guiltless are to be blamed and the criminal cleared, in order that the truth be made manifest; that I withdraw the impeachment already made against you, that I allow peaceable and harmless peasants to be attainted as rebels; that I disavow the responsibility of redressing their grievances, and that for this, a dead yet innocent man be blamed, and his memory be defamed. No such defence for me, thank you!"
Petray laughed patronisingly.
"My good friend, you are an idealist and always will be. What does the 'pope's' reputation matter to you, since he is dead? Do you suppose he troubles as to what men say of him now? And as for the peasants, we can make short work of them by putting them in irons. The defence is perfectly in order; you only have to sign that you accept it."
"Let my hand wither in its chains first," cried the prisoner, "ere I subscribe to such infamy!" and he stretched his wasted hand to heaven.
"Think twice, Ráby, before you decide thus," said his tormentor. "If you refuse, you may no longer rely on my help, and then you will just go back to the place you came from."
"Take me there," cried his victim, "but torture me no further, rather kill me outright. But as long as my soul is master of my body, no pains or persecutions shall cause me to forswear my honour and give the lie to truth!"
His anger lent the prisoner an unwonted energy, and Petray fairly quailed as Ráby dashed up to him and attempted to tear the document from his hand; between them it was torn in two, but the leaves were stained with blood!
Petray was beside himself with rage; he hastily called for the gaoler and the heydukes, who shortly entered, followed by Laskóy.
"He is an abandoned wretch, a traitor, a madman," cried Petray. "He has flown at me, and tried to murder me. Put him in irons again directly!"
"Out with the fetters," cried Laskóy. "Where are the heaviest ones?"
And they tore off the bandages from Ráby's wounded limbs, and called the locksmith to rivet them afresh.
But that functionary revolted at this fresh act of cruelty against a helpless invalid. "I won't do it," he said defiantly. "From this hour I serve the authorities no longer; I will have no part in such cruel injustice!" And so saying he left them, never to appear again.
At last, after searching Pesth in vain, they found a locksmith in Pilis to do the work.
But when they thrust Ráby back again into his icy dungeon, he cried, as the door closed upon his tormentors, "I am not dead yet."
"But I'll take care that you soon will be," muttered the gaoler, as he fettered the prisoner afresh to the wall, "and I've orders to visit you twice every day, so that you may not carry on any of your accursed necromancy in the cell."
The next time his rations were brought him, it occurred to Ráby that the bread was strewn with a white powder. He had often complained of it not being salted, but this did not look like salt, and as he was not hungry, he did not attempt to eat it.
That evening when it was dark, he heard the well-remembered voice again from the floor above.
"Poor Ráby," it whispered, "are you there?"
And on his ready answer, came the caution: "Do not eat of the bread they have brought you, it is poisoned."
The prisoner had suspected as much, but what was he to do? There was nothing for it but to die of hunger, it seemed.
"Examine the cane I am pushing down" came the voice again, and a minute or two later, appeared the cane whose hollow had already brought him so much. This time it was filled with chocolate, and there was enough to last him till the morning. But what was he to drink?
"Pour the water out of the pitcher, and through the cane I will fill it with fresh," suggested the voice, and he hastened to obey.
The next morning the gaoler saw with dismay that his prisoner was still alive, and apparently uninjured by his supper, yet it would have killed most men. However, he had not eaten much of it to be sure, judging by the little that had disappeared.
And when his back was turned, once more came the voice calling to Ráby, and this time it brought bad news indeed.
"The Emperor has gone," it said, "he sought for you, but could find no trace of you. They told him you had been released, so he left in that belief."
"Only give me writing materials," pleaded Ráby earnestly.
"I cannot, as soon as you are convicted of having them in the cell, you are to be beheaded immediately. Besides, no one knows where the Emperor is; they say he is in Turkey."
The threat was for Ráby but one more spur to action, and he was defiant, and pleaded no longer with his protectress. He had hidden a morsel of paper in his wretched bed, and on this he wrote with a straw for pen, with a drop of his own blood for ink, for he had no other. When it was dry, he rolled it up and concealed it in a straw-stalk.
Then he waited till the next time his cell was being swept out by a heyduke, who was the one who had formerly brought him the pitcher with the false bottom. Ráby gave his missive to him, and whispered, "This is worth a hundred ducats." The man understood, and took the straw.
That was Mathias Ráby's last attempt at freedom.
From that day forward, all sorts of threats were used to make him sign Petray's paper, and sometimes they kept him so long under examination in the court, that he fainted from sheer exhaustion.
One night the door opened, and Janosics appeared with three men, one of whom bore a brazier of burning coals, another a pair of pincers, and in the third he recognised the public executioner of Pesth.
"I'll soon make the stubborn fellow yield," cried the castellan brutally; "let's see if this won't bend him! Now, gentlemen, do your duty; strip him, and torture him till he confesses his crimes."
Ráby was dumb with horror. They tore his clothes from him, but the sight of the prisoner's haggard face and emaciated figure smote the heart even of the executioner with a sudden pity.
"My good Janosics," he said, "I won't torment the poor wretch, not if you give me the whole Assembly House for doing such work."
And with that, he put on his coat, seized the water-pitcher which stood by Ráby's bed, and extinguished the coals, so that the cell was plunged in sudden darkness. Then the whole crew withdrew quarrelling among themselves.
When Ráby brought the occurrence to the notice of the court the following day, they only laughed, and said he had been dreaming!
One of the thoughts that tortured Ráby most was the anxiety as to what he should do for food, if his benefactress' daily supply of chocolate should fail him. He saved up a little store of it hidden in his black bread, and for water, he could trust to the ice which still, through the severity of the season, constantly formed in his dungeon.
And one day, what he had so long dreaded, happened, and the voice was heard no longer, and he had to take refuge in his hardly saved store of nourishment. Nor was there any sign of his protectress on the following day. But that night in the room above he could hear men's footsteps and the sound of a woman groaning, as if with pain, all the night long. A fearful suspicion crossed his mind that he dared not face, even to himself.
It was obvious that overhead someone was dying, and that someone a woman. He would not let his mind dwell on the presentiment that suddenly arose; it could not be, it must be a nightmare conjured up by his own fevered imagination.
The next morning the groans had ceased, but he could not hear what was being said by those talking. By the afternoon, his fears were changed into certainty, and he knew it was no dream.
Then he heard the sound of singing, the melancholy droning that the Calvinists use over the corpse, so charged with dreary forebodings, the horrible gloom of which is in such contrast to the touching Catholic ritual for the dead, where all tends to prayerful hope for the departed and to consolation for the survivors.
And then followed a series of dull thuds, as if they were nailing down a coffin-lid, and Ráby shuddered, but not this time with the cold.
Towards evening his gaoler came to visit his cell, and Ráby mastered his feelings sufficiently as far as to ask who it was they were burying.
The castellan read the real question in the prisoner's face as in an open book. It betrayed his one vulnerable point, and his tormentor was not slow to take advantage of his discovery.
So he wiped his eye hypocritically, and murmured in a sorrowful tone, "Alas, it is our beloved Fräulein Mariska, the head notary's daughter, that they are carrying to the grave. Heaven rest her soul!"
The prisoner uttered a sharp cry as if he had received his death-blow; then he burst into tears. Truly the dart had gone home this time, and nothing could ward it off. The gaoler laughed behind the prisoner's back; he had done better than the executioner for once!
But Ráby bowed his head on his knees, and clasped his fettered hands in prayer for the soul that had so lately taken flight from this valley of tears. But had he known it, Ráby was praying, not for the soul of Mariska, but for that of his wretched wife, for it was she whom they were bearing to the grave.
Fruzsinka had been, all unknown to him, a prisoner like himself, and this was the end. How she had come there we shall learn later, for meantime there are other factors in this strange history to be reckoned with, and Ráby is still languishing in his dungeon.
Ráby no longer dreaded the poisoned food that he expected his gaoler to bring him, but next morning, strange to say, Janosics appeared with empty hands and a malicious leer on his ill-favoured features.
"Do I have no food to-day?" asked the prisoner.
"Yes, indeed, my dear friend, from to-day you live like a prince. No more bread and water for you, but just a jolly good dinner of the best, and as much red wine as you like. And your fetters are to come off, and you are to be moved into better quarters. You know, I daresay, as well as I can tell you, what all this means."
Ráby shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, it means that to-day your death-sentence is to be formally approved in court, and that the scaffold is your destination. Till then, you are to be kept in the condemned cell, and have everything you like as befits a criminal under sentence of death, and enjoy yourself while you may."
It was too true, and no jest. The locksmith came and filed off the prisoner's fetters once more, and then the barber shaved him, but the closeness with which his hair was cut, signified only too clearly it was the "toilet of the condemned."
They did not stand on ceremony, but just carried Ráby into the court (for he could not walk), to hear that the capital sentence against which he had previously appealed was now confirmed by the higher court, and that he must prepare to die forthwith.
He heard the decision with strange indifference, but all now he longed for, was that they should get it over as quickly as possible.
He was taken, not into his former cell, but into a small cheerful, well-warmed room, where a table stood spread with all the delicacies imaginable.
This was the "condemned cell," and to it many a kind-hearted housewife in those days was accustomed to send the pick of her larder, to provide a good dinner for those whose earthly meals were numbered—a form of charity at that time very much practised by the housekeepers of Pesth.
"Now, Ráby, you can eat and drink to your heart's content," cried Janosics. "But it's no good trying to take any away with you, remember." And the gaoler pushed the table to the couch, so as to be within the reach of the prisoner.
But Ráby had no appetite, and had other preoccupations than those of the table, to fill his mind just then.
Meanwhile, Ráby's message had not been forgotten by the heyduke to whom he had entrusted it. Old Abraham had taken it to the Emperor who, he heard, was laid up sick in the capital, and it had been promptly read and acted upon. Three days later, Colonel Lievenkopp, just appointed the commandant at Pesth, sought out the governor, and demanded immediate audience on urgent matters of state.
He had, in fact, a message from the Emperor. "Thanks, Colonel, leave it there; I'll read it later on; there's no hurry," said his Excellency, airily, on receiving the imperial missive.
"Unfortunately, there is hurry, your Excellency! I have orders to have the mandate read in my presence."
The words staggered the governor. He, the virtual, if not the nominal ruler of Hungary, to be spoken to like this, and to have the law laid down in this fashion to him!
"Hoity-toity! I have other things to do! Suppose, too, I am not inclined to read it?"
"Then your Excellency will permit me to observe that I am empowered to proceed to extreme measures. In the event of your Excellency not reading that letter at once, I am commissioned to call in half a dozen officers of public health who are waiting outside, with a regimental surgeon, for the purpose of placing your Excellency in a strait-waistcoat, and escorting you to Vienna under surveillance—you will guess whither?"
The governor's face became crimson with rage.
"What do you say—For me, a strait-waistcoat? Me, the representative of the crown? Do you mean to say the Emperor said that, that he has written it? Impossible, man, impossible!"
And he tore the letter out of the envelope, and read its contents.
They were short, and his eyes became suddenly blood-shot as he read as follows: