One of the thoughts that tortured Raby 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 Raby shuddered, but not this time with the cold.
Towards evening his gaoler came to visit his cell, and Raby 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 Fraulein 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 Raby 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, Raby 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 Raby is still languishing in his dungeon.