Raby 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."
Raby 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 Raby 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, Raby, 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 Raby had no appetite, and had other preoccupations than those of the
table, to fill his mind just then.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, Raby'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:
"From to-day you are relieved of your office: make
over your keys to the district commissioner at once.
"JOSEPH."
"And I have Mathias Raby to thank for this," groaned his Excellency.
"Possibly," said Lievenkopp drily, "for his Majesty has entrusted me
with a patent for the Pesth magistracy, whereby he demands the instant
release of Mr. Mathias Raby; in the case of non-obedience, by ten
o'clock to-morrow, I am ordered to enforce its execution by a battery
and a corresponding number of soldiers, and if the prisoner is not
brought out, to storm the Assembly House forthwith, and release Mr. Raby
from captivity."
"Storm the Assembly House?" stammered the magnate, dazed with the
suggestion. "Stir up civil war just for the sake of one miserable
culprit. Oh, that fellow will be the death of me!"
And the wretched man staggered as with a sudden blow, and blindly clung
to a chair for support to prevent him from falling. He was blue in the
face, his clenched hand still grasping the letter; it was the beginning
of an apoplectic fit.
Lievenkopp hastened to send one of the secretaries for a doctor, but it
was already too late; when the surgeon arrived to bleed him, the
governor was beyond such help. Thus passed one more actor in this
memorable tragedy of Rab Raby.