The Strange Story of Rab Raby Part 18

"Now, Marczi, if you drive well, we'll drink to-day to any amount," he cried.

"Ay, that we will," agreed the driver as they dashed off.

Mathias Raby was again pressed by his wife to go and get some shooting.

Perhaps he might be more lucky to-day, and bring home a hare.

His spouse was all affection and anxiety. So he went.

But the things Raby had heard lately he could not get out of his head.

Therefore he did not go far into the country, but turned back in the direction of Pesth. There, he saw a mob of men, women, and children, who all seemed to be waiting for someone.

He would not ask for whom, for he knew they would not tell him.

But hardly had Raby gone a few hundred paces past them, than he noted a carriage drawn by three horses, coming from the prefecture at a quick gallop, whereupon the whole crowd of people, till now silent, burst forth with loud cries, and placed themselves on either side of the road.

The pa.s.senger inside the carriage he did not recognise; neither could he make out what it was the mob were shouting to him. But their tone was sufficiently menacing. As the equipage dashed between the rows of people, the yells became still louder, whilst fists were raised and sticks were brandished threateningly. The carriage did not stop, but cleared the mob till it had left it far behind.

When the carriage reached Raby, he saw the surveyor cowering on the back seat. Now he gathered what the people's cries had meant. But he did not understand what it was till the carriage pulled up close to him, and he recognised in the driver, Dacso Marczi.

"Your very humble servant," exclaimed the surveyor to Raby. "Did you hear the infernal row they made? That's the way they receive me everywhere. If Marczi had not been my coachman, I should have had stones thrown at my head."

"Your worship," cried Marczi, in a voice already thick with wine; "is there still some brandy in the flask?"

"Yes, Marczi, here you are, drink!"

The coachman took the bottle and emptied it.

"Marczi, you will do yourself harm!" objected Raby.

"Not a bit of it," stammered the driver, whilst he set down the flask, and with that he whipped up the horses, and off they flew, so that the wheels scattered the mud on all sides.

At one spot where the high road nears the Danube, a side-path winds in the direction of the river towards the ferry. When Marczi's carriage had reached this point, the coachman turned the horses and urged them with the whip along the path. Then all at once the carriage dashed from the steep bank into the river below.

"Help, help!" yelled the driver, waving his hat; but horses and carriage were already struggling against the strong tide of the river, now swollen by its spring flood.

But no help was forthcoming, and Raby only saw a man m.u.f.fled up in a fur coat, struggling desperately to free himself from the sinking carriage, but the heavy garment dragged him helplessly down. Soon the vehicle with its pa.s.senger began to sink, and at last the horses' heads disappeared in the stream. Coachman, surveyor, and doc.u.ments all had gone to the bottom of the Danube. Nor was any trace of them ever found.

Mathias Raby stood horror-stricken on the highway, while around him the wintry wind swept over the stubble fields, and carried it with the sound as of a howling of many voices that echoed afar off like the laughter of despair.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

CHAPTER XVII.

This catastrophe was destined to affect Raby's mood in a fateful way.

When he went home he told his wife all that had happened, and she quickly guessed the sequel.

"Now you will be more intent than ever on pursuing your mad enterprise,"

she said.

"And shall I let myself be shamed into abandoning it by the fate of an ignorant boor, who, little idea as he had of the higher virtues, was ready to sacrifice his life in order to save his fellow-citizens from beggary?"

"You will drive me to exasperation," cried Fruzsinka.

"I would rather have your anger than your contempt, dearest."

"And is our love nothing to you at all?"

"Better that the whole world hate me for my determination, than to earn your love through cowardice. I know that your very opposition to my work is a proof of your love, and therefore, I pray you, my angel, Fruzsinka, listen to me. If I leave this place, I shut every door to a future career. It is now or never, I must go to Vienna. If I write and tell the Emperor that the struggle is of no avail, he will dismiss me at once from my post."

But Fruzsinka answered nothing, she only wept.

That meant of course that Raby ought to have stayed at home, for only a heart of stone could leave a weeping woman and refuse to comfort her.

But Mathias Raby had just that heart of stone, and he was quite prepared to leave his wife in tears, so to Vienna he went. For you could travel there quickly enough, as there was a famous diligence which carried its pa.s.sengers in a day to the Austrian capital.

Moreover, no one except Fruzsinka knew he had gone to Vienna.

There he showed himself nowhere. He knew that the Emperor was accustomed to walk every morning in the so-called "meadow garden," where, clad in a simple short coat and plain hat, he was often taken for one of his own equerries. There Raby could speak to him, and tell him how matters stood in Hungary.

The Kaiser commended what Raby had already done and encouraged him to go on and prosper. He gave him every aid in his power to help him, including a special pa.s.s, wherein all to whom he showed it, were adjured to respect the bearer's person. But he advised Raby only to show this letter in a case of extreme necessity, and begged him not to tell anyone of the interview he had just had.

Then Raby hastened homewards, feeling he had ordered his affairs for the best.

On the return journey he arranged to reach Pesth in time to attend the meeting of the County a.s.sembly.

First, he proceeded to the a.s.sembly House to look out certain doc.u.ments.

The first person he met was the p.r.o.notary, Tarhalmy.

Tarhalmy was more friendly, yet more gruff than ever. He called Raby into his room, and when they were alone, exclaimed:

"You come at the right time, my friend, for we have already cited you as a 'runaway n.o.ble,' as the legal phrase has it."

"Cited me! What in the world for, I should like to know?"

"Yes, my friend, you are impeached. And guess wherefore! They say you are Gyongyom Miska himself, and actually dare to accuse you of robbing the Jew Rotheisel three days ago in the Styrian forest."

Raby hardly knew whether to laugh or to be indignant at such a charge.

"But surely that is a very poor joke!" he protested.

"I quite agree that it is. But they have only just brought the accusation, and you can easily get out of it by proving an _alibi_."