When the points in Raby's indictment had mounted up to eighty, he
thought it time to make his protest to the presiding judge:
"I am shattered in mind and body alike; I desire to withdraw the
accusation I have made, seeing it in no wise profits the oppressed
people in whose interests I lodged it, but rather tends to their further
hurt."
"That avails nothing," was the answer. "The accusation has been
presented to the Emperor, and the complainant must justify it. Is the
treasure to which the impeachment relates, found, a third of it falls to
the informer; is the information thus lodged proved to be false, the
informer forfeits his head forthwith. So out with your proofs!"
"Proofs? How can I furnish them I should like to know, fettered as I am,
from a dungeon?" cried Raby in desperation. "Are not all my documents in
the hands of my enemies? Have not the archives of Szent-Endre been
destroyed, and my private papers abstracted, so that I am denied all
means of procuring the proofs I need?"
"How do you know that?" asked the judge, dumbfoundered.
"I know it only too well. Nay, I know too, it happened at the
instigation of the authorities."
"This is the gravest evidence we have yet had of your guilt," cried the
judge; "this shows you have held intercourse with the outside world,
although forbidden by the law to do so."
"It only proves I am right," retorted the prisoner.
"Pray who are your accomplices who helped you in your correspondence?"
demanded his accuser angrily.
"No one and everyone body. The bare walls, the air itself, the iron
door, my fetters, my guards--all are my accomplices if you like to call
them so."
"Well, we will just make your chains a little faster so you can't move
about quite so easily, my friend, that's all."
"That avails you nothing," exclaimed Raby. "Their clanking sounds even
now in the ears of one who is your imperial lord and master, and will
shortly be here in his city of Pesth to sit in judgment upon you. Let
the guilty tremble before him, I have no need to do so."
These bold words enraged the judge beyond measure. How did Raby know
that the Emperor was about to come to Pesth for the military manoeuvres,
and there review the troops in person. Did he know as well that the
Szent-Endre people were only biding their time to send a deputation to
the Kaiser to ask for Raby's release, and to demand an inquiry into the
conduct of the Pesth authorities in imprisoning him. It never occurred
to them that an ordinary water-pitcher with a false bottom held the
letters which Raby wrote and received, and that each heyduke who carried
it, was an involuntary courier.
In vain did they interrogate the heyduke who brought it, and ordered him
to be beaten; for each stroke the man received, he was sent by some
unknown hand a gold piece, so he was not inclined to complain.
When the Emperor did arrive in Pesth, the following August, he learned
with surprise that his emissary was still detained in prison. He
straightway sent for the head magistrate, expressed his displeasure, and
ordered Raby's immediate release on pain of all the authorities of the
city being dismissed from office. This was an order which had to be
obeyed.
So forthwith in the Emperor's presence, the mandate was sent that
Mathias Raby be immediately released from custody. The command was
peremptory and admitted of no evasion.
But the next night someone thrust under the door of Raby's cell, a note
containing these words:
"Be ready this night! Your true friends are coming to fetch you away.
They will overpower the gaoler, take away the keys from him, and set you
free."
"But it is evident," reflected Raby, "this is not from my friends; we
don't conduct our correspondence like this. They have heard the Emperor
has ordered my release, and now they want to convict me of trying to
escape by force." And he gave the letter to the gaoler.
But, alas, it only made an excuse for a fresh inquisition, and they
based on it the pretence of "a plot against the public safety."
Moreover, it was held to justify a still more rigorous treatment of the
prisoner, who on this fresh charge of conspiring with bandits, was
declared to have merited imprisonment anew. And the inquiry which
followed lasted late into the autumn, whilst the Emperor was too much
occupied in his fresh war with the Turks to be aware of this new turn of
affairs.
And Raby's fetters were meantime rivetted more closely than ever, so
that he could not write any more, and his wretched prison fare grew
worse and worse. The winter too had come, and the prisoner was well-nigh
frozen in his cell, for the dungeon was not warmed, and he had only his
summer clothing which was now in tatters. On his complaining of the cold
to the judges, they gave orders that Raby's cell should be heated three
times a day.
The end of it was that they placed a stove in the cell which was so
violently overheated that it burst, and Raby had to press his face to
the wall in desperation to cool his scorched brow. Yet he could have
escaped had he chosen, for the door of his cell was often left open, as
if to abet his flight. But Raby, when he did leave prison, meant to
leave it proudly and fearlessly, as an innocent man who is rightfully
acquitted before his country's tribunal, not as a fugitive.
One day the gaoler came in to say that permission had been given for the
prisoner to be shaved, and for his irons to be removed--a grace for
which Raby hardly knew how to be thankful enough. It was a deadly pale,
if clean-shaven face that the barber's mirror reflected, but small
wonder, seeing that Raby had not seen the sunlight for a year and a
half. This luxury was followed by an amelioration of his prison fare,
and fresh bedding, for both of which benefits, especially the last, he
was duly grateful, for it meant a good night's rest.
However, that very night, Raby was awakened from his first sleep by a
tremendous rattling at his cell door, and the next minute it was burst
open, and the light of the full moon flooded his dungeon. The prisoner
thought he must be dreaming, but the same instant the cell was suddenly
filled by a band of masked men in Turkish attire, with huge turbans on
their heads, and armed with an array of weapons, including swords and
muskets.
Raby was wondering in what language to address his strange visitors,
when one of them accosted him in Serb, and then Hungarian.
"Fear nothing, Mr. Raby. We are true friends from Szent-Endre, and have
bribed the guard and occupied the Assembly House. We have come to set
you free from this wretched dungeon by the Emperor's orders."
"But I do not wish to purchase my freedom by force," answered the
captive, "and if the Emperor wished to deliver me, it would surely not
be by masqueraders sent by night, but by his accredited emissaries in
the full light of day."
"Here's the order signed by the Emperor," and the head of the band of
maskers handed Raby a document which contained detailed and definite
instructions anent the Szent-Endre affair, set forth in Serb, which was
the Emperor's favourite language.
Raby protested against the idea of flight, but they overpowered his
resistance, and made a show of armed force. "Silence, or you are a dead
man," was their only answer to his protestations, and the prisoner, weak
and enfeebled as he was by his privations, and dazed by the sudden
surprise which had thus overtaken him, fell at last in a dead faint and
lost all consciousness.
When he came to himself, he was dressed as a woman, in the coloured
bodice and embroidered apron of the Serb peasant girl, and his hair tied
with gay ribbons; it was for this, no doubt, that he had been shaven.
Raby's entreaties availed nothing. In vain he implored them to desist,
and reminded them the military would be sent to overtake them, and then
all would be over! His representations achieved nothing with his
rescuers, and finally a rough, but powerful-looking fellow of the party
seized Raby and carried him off on his back out of the cell, followed
by the whole crew shouting and howling. The inhabitants of the Assembly
House must have been stone deaf, had they not been aroused by the
tumult. The band dashed in the moonlight through the court and gateway,
past the guard-room where four-and-twenty were wont to sleep, without
being questioned by a single soul as to their escapade.
It was towards the Kecskemet gate that they hurried, as the likeliest
one to be open, so as to get off thus with least delay, and thence away
to the river-bank.
At that time, communication with the other side of the Danube was kept
up by a so-called "flying-bridge," that was a work of art in its archaic
way, consisting of a flat raft-like contrivance, whereto was attached a
thick cable, which half a dozen small boats served to keep out of the
water. Behind the last boat, at the so-called "Nun's Ferry," below Hare
Island, the cable was fast anchored. Linked to this cable, the raft was
towed by a single oar to and fro. At night the ferry was not generally
used and the ferry-men were not there, but this time they were at their
posts ready for the expected passengers. The masked Turks took their
places on it without delay, and off they drifted.
Poor Raby was trembling in every limb, principally from the bitter cold
of the December night, which, after his long confinement from the outer
air, struck his senses with the sharpness of a knife. Moreover, he was
not quite sure that these strange rescuers would not throw him
overboard into the river, to find there an unknown and unhonoured grave.
However, they did nothing of the kind, but the party reached the other
side safely. There horses, ready saddled, awaited them, and a coach and
four. Three of the sham Turks sprang into the vehicle, and dragged Raby
with them. The rest mounted the horses, and they took the way along the
Old Buda road.
One of the escort had the kindness to throw his cloak over the freezing
prisoner, the coach leading the way, the riders following. But gradually
the horsemen dropped off till, when they reached Vorosvar, not one was
to be seen.
By this time the released prisoner had succumbed to the unaccustomed
strain on his already exhausted and overwrought nerves, and had lost all
consciousness of what was going on around him, so that he had to be
lifted out of the carriage in a swoon when they stopped at an inn.
When he awoke from his stupor late the next morning, he was in a
comfortable bed. Only two of his late companions were to be seen, and
they no longer wore Turkish dress, but the garb of the well-to-do Serb
peasant, and, indeed, turned out to be respectable peasant-proprietors
of Szent-Endre.
Yet neither their names nor faces were known to Raby.
For the rest, his two guardians showed themselves full of consideration
for their patient. They procured him warm clothing, caused light
invalid food to be prepared for him, and begged him not to be too
anxious to try his strength with the journey. When Raby had sufficiently
rested, the coachman received orders to drive slowly, so that it might
not exhaust the traveller, and they set out again, not without many
misgivings from the fugitive as to whether they could not be overtaken
and their flight intercepted.
One of his companions, who told him his name was Kurovics, besought him
to make his mind easy on this score. He pointed out how they would get
the start of the authorities before these could mobilise their forces.
Then no one knew of the disguise in which Raby had escaped; from the
description which the Pesth court would issue for his recovery, no one
would recognise him, so he had no cause for fear.
They only made two stages a day, so that the journey to Pozsony (which
was their goal,) lasted eight days, through resting at the inns on the
road. His companions gave themselves out as pig-dealers, and said Raby
was their cousin. The third day they fell in with a party of armed
heydukes who were searching for their charge. They stopped the
cavalcade, and told them of their quest. At each wayside inn Raby could
read the notice which posted him up as a criminal and outlaw, for whose
identification a reward of two hundred ducats was offered. To his
relief, the description of him corresponded to the appearance he had
presented in prison, with an over-grown beard, tangled hair, and pale
face, wearing a faded silk coat. Little did his pursuers imagine that in
the shy Serb maiden, with her cheeks painted red, who understood nothing
but her native tongue, that the fugitive they sought stood before them.
More than once it even happened that Raby and his pursuers slept under
the same roof.
Meantime, he became more and more attached to his two friends, whose
worth he began to realise increasingly.