The Strange Story of Rab Raby Part 42

Besides, how should a child like you understand?"

Yet Tarhalmy marvelled at the girl's questions; they reached their mark.

But he felt he owed her an explanation.

"I will try and make it clear," he said. "Our Emperor is a very well-meaning man who has the welfare of this country at heart. He honestly wants to benefit the people he rules over. But one thing he does not understand, and that is the love of the Magyar for his native land and his Hungarian inst.i.tutions. If our mother is sick, do we cease to love her? And so it is with Hungary, we, her children, know her weakness and her wants, but we do not cease to love her the less. The Emperor does not understand us; he wishes to civilise us before we are ready for it, to mould us to his own ideals of a nation. He does not want, as other rulers have done, to crush us, but he would have us develop by new and unfamiliar methods. Against force we could oppose force, yet he does not attempt to coerce us, but seeks only to impose on us the weight of his authority. Thus it is that he sends orders which no one obeys, and there are none of his officials who dare carry them out.

The whole body of Hungarian opinion in this land is dead against his reforms, and will continue to oppose them tooth and nail."

Now all this did not trouble Mariska; she understood so little of it.

Moreover, what her father said must be true. Yet she could not see what the Emperor's dealings with Hungary had to do with Raby's imprisonment.

"It is a bit difficult for my little girl to grasp, isn't it?" went on Tarhalmy kindly. "Unfortunately the Emperor does not understand how to deal with our const.i.tution. For instance, the members of our governing body are chosen every three years, so that if any among them are proven to be unworthy of the office, they can be rejected at the end of their term. But the Emperor stretches his prerogative, and rules that these offices are to be held for life. And as long as he persists in tampering with our const.i.tution and interferes with the existing order in the state, so long will Hungarians put every hindrance in the way of his emissaries. Nay, they would rather condone the misdeeds of corrupt officials than reach the hand of fellowship to an idealist like Raby, who is inspired by a n.o.ble belief in the righteousness of his mission, and sincerely imagines he is going to free the people of this land from long-standing ills. That is why they make him suffer for his boldness, and will make him suffer yet more, if an evil chance brings him hither once again. He will find the anger of the entire nation aroused against him. Moreover, now that the whole nation is incensed with the Emperor for carrying on the war against the Turks with his Russian allies, and is refusing him both subsidies and recruits, it is less likely than ever to view those who carry out his reforms with favour. And meantime, we honest well-meaning folk who only desire to live at peace with G.o.d and our neighbour as Christians should do, have to stand shoulder to shoulder with rogues and vagabonds to protect our country's interests."

The head-notary turned sadly away and left the room, and Mariska sunk into a silent reverie. Her father returning, suddenly put his head in at the door.

"Are you quite sure, little one, that you understand all I have been saying?" he asked somewhat anxiously.

"Father dear, I am going to write it all down straight away," returned the girl, "and may I send it to Raby?" she added shyly.

"You may if you like," whispered Tarhalmy, strangely touched at her request.

And Mariska set about making herself a new pen in order to do justice to the projected doc.u.ment.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

Mathias Raby kept as far as possible out of Vienna society after his arrival in the capital. He never appeared at Court, and rented a modest apartment in Paternoster Street without giving his address to anyone. It was not only that he wanted to be undisturbed so as to fulfil a difficult and important work, but that he felt that a turning-point in his life had come, which implied a momentous decision on his part.

His common-sense told him that so far the tragedy which he had lived through was only a huge jest for the Vienna public, who enjoy nothing so well as a joke. That the bold Magyars had played off this trick on the Emperor himself made the whole jest all the grimmer. For them it mattered not one jot who the victim was, as long as they had their laugh.

So Raby avoided his nearest friends, and even reading the papers irritated him. With so many big affairs going on in the world, what did people care about the Szent-Endre happenings, or the machinations of the Pesth government authorities, at a time when in the East, Russia was shaking the Ottoman power to its foundations, and the rising of the German Netherlands was threatening Austria with the loss of her finest province, whilst like an ever darkening storm-cloud, the French Revolution was already lowering on the political horizon. With such contingencies, Szent-Endre affairs might well go to the wall.

Raby worked so unremittingly at his task, that by the beginning of January, he could hand over his report to the Emperor.

It was a straggling and long-winded, but exhaustive, doc.u.ment. To make the tangled threads hold together and get a grip of the facts was no light business, but at last the bill of indictment was drawn up.

Nor were the Pesth authorities, meantime, slow in preferring their counter impeachment against Raby, and a black one it was--instigator of rebellion, breaker of the peace, calumniator of the council--he was all these, and much more according to this weighty indictment which brought forward as many arguments to prove the case against him, as Raby had adduced against his adversaries.

It was between them the Emperor had now to judge, and that impartially, as justice demanded, and not swayed by his own feelings.

Raby handed his report to his imperial master, and gave him a brief sketch of the contents, and the proofs of his charges, the Emperor listening intently the while. Joseph held in his hand the counter-indictment.

Then he said: "I will consider the whole report carefully. Till I am ready to see you again, take this doc.u.ment and read it at your leisure.

I have glanced through it, and by letting you read it, I shall show to you that my trust in you is still unshaken. If you can bring it back to me, faithfully deny all the charges it contains, and prove that they are false, I will tell off two of my most trusted police-agents to look after your personal safety, protect you against the wiles of your enemies, and procure for you all the witnesses and doc.u.ments you need to establish your innocence. But if you find one serious indictment against you which can be substantiated, then say no more about it; I promise you I will not ask any questions, for what has. .h.i.therto happened may have been through my own fault in dealing with this people. At the St.

Petersburg Emba.s.sy there will soon be a legation-secretary wanted; it would be just the berth for you! I'll give you to the end of the month to think it over. At our next meeting it depends on you to say whether you go to Pesth or Petersburg."

And with these words the Emperor dismissed Raby.

And what better offer could he have had? A new life in a new country where all the old unhappy past could be for ever blotted out and forgotten, with no remaining links to bind him to his old days. Nothing more tempting could the Emperor have suggested.

He took the fatal indictment with him, and returned home to study its contents--and a bitter reading it made. By turns he laughed at the horrible tragicomedy, and then ground his teeth in rage at the stupidity and malice of it all; the whole thing was put together with such a grotesque lack of reason. The heaped-up charges would have sufficed to condemn the accused over and over again, and Raby hardly recognised himself in this double-dyed traitor, who had been guilty of almost every crime. There would be no judge living who, had such charges been proven, would not have pa.s.sed on him without mercy the capital sentence. And to think that this avalanche of lies had been heaped up by those for whom he was labouring to free from oppression, those for whom he had suffered so much, and was still suffering, who were now vilifying him as a traitor.

At that moment he was very nearly throwing over the cause of the people for good and all, and fleeing to a country where he should never hear the name of his native land again.

And then a terrible struggle began in Raby's soul. On one side all his vanity and self-respect rose in arms to urge him to flight. Was he to labour without reward for this miserable people, and make its most distinguished leaders his enemies? Was his name to be dragged in the mire through the length and breadth of the land to gratify their malice? Could he not turn his back on it all, and find in a foreign capital that field for his gifts where they would have a worthy scope for their display, and be cherished and rewarded? Fame and wealth on the one hand, misery and disgrace on the other, and at best, the doubtful credit of the informer--that was the choice!

Long did the two strive for mastery, and darker and more hateful grew the picture of what he might expect if he returned to his self-imposed work. Was it not better to root out from his soul all thoughts of his fatherland?

And in the midst of it all there arrived Mariska's letter, which was the only one of all his missives he opened and read just then.

Twice, thrice, he read it, with its too well-understood appeal: "Do not come back again!" And her words decided him.

And indeed if Raby had not, after reading it, sprung up and cried, "Now I will go back!" he had not been worthy of having his history written in this record.

What if he owed it not to his people or his prince to go back, at least he owed it to Mariska, and he would remember his debt. To her, at least, he would prove that he was a man who did not turn his back on danger, but went boldly forth to brave it when duty and his country called, and to justify himself at that country's tribunal.

And what love did not the letter breathe for him for whom she wrote it--no gross earthly pa.s.sion, but rather the pure love of a devoted sister for a brother, of a tender mother who seeks to ward danger from the head of a dearly loved son--that was love as Mariska felt it.

And Raby thought sorrowfully how many anxious hours that letter must have cost her poor little head, ere she could clothe her thoughts in words and achieve the difficult task of reporting faithfully her father's ideas--ideas which must of necessity have been hard for her girlish mind to grasp in their fulness, much more to put on paper.

And like a horrible nightmare arose the thought of that other woman who had betrayed her husband, and as if to make herself still more unworthy in his eyes, had flaunted her shamelessness by masquerading in man's attire.

And the temptation suddenly arose to procure the deed of separation which the free and easy Protestant marriage laws made only too possible, and forswear the solemn tie that bound him to Fruzsinka. But he put it from him as one more temptation to be resisted, not less powerful because it came from within instead of from without.

Poor Mariska, how the aim of her well-meant letter had failed! It was to have just the contrary effect she had intended.

After reading it again, Raby hesitated no longer, but took the doc.u.ments under his arm, hastened to the palace, sought the Emperor's presence, and said simply, "All that stands written here is false from beginning to end! I beg your Majesty to send me back to Pesth."

"Good," said the Emperor, "and if they dare to lay a hand on you, I will come myself and set you free."

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

The Emperor sent Raby two agents of the secret police, who were told off to accompany him wherever he went; both had full powers to claim admission everywhere, to arrest anyone they desired without respect to rank, and to draw the requisite funds they might need from the public banks.

One of them, named Plotzlich, was a famous detective, and never so happy as when he was tracking some notorious criminal to his lair, or dexterously unravelling some-deep-laid plot. His personal courage was everywhere recognised, and he had won high distinction in the performance of his duties in Vienna, where he was generally respected and feared; in fact, Raby could hardly have had a better man to protect him.

However, even Mr. Plotzlich had his limitations, as Raby found out by the time they were fairly on the road in the diligence. The police-commissioner had never been out of Vienna, and a country journey was a new experience.

At the sight of the sparrows (which had been exterminated in the towns) he cried, "How very small the pigeons are here!" Then, seeing some country peasants hunting marmots out of their holes, he asked what kind of an animal they were, whereupon the farmer he addressed told him it was an Hungarian mouse. From which it will be seen that the accomplished detective's knowledge of zoology was limited, to say the least of it.

When they put up for the night at an inn on the road, Raby noted with some surprise that Plotzlich drew his sword and laid it in the bed beside him. Raby a.s.sured him that no danger was to be apprehended, as all the doors were barred against possible attacks from robbers.

"Ah! that may be," returned the other, "but," pointing to a mouse hole, "suppose an Hungarian mouse should get in!"