The Strange Story of Rab Raby Part 47

And Petray proceeded to read the doc.u.ment in which he had set forth Raby's case with such cunning adroitness, that black appeared white in his representations, and white wholly black. Such a web of sophistries, in fact, had he woven, that it had been difficult for a hearer to disentangle the truth. In it all the guilt was laid at the door of the dead "pope," and Raby appeared as a too confiding victim of his wiles and misrepresentations. It was a tissue of false statements, yet Raby listened to the end.

Then he said indignantly: "So you really believe I need all that for my justification, do you, that the guiltless are to be blamed and the criminal cleared, in order that the truth be made manifest; that I withdraw the impeachment already made against you, that I allow peaceable and harmless peasants to be attainted as rebels; that I disavow the responsibility of redressing their grievances, and that for this, a dead yet innocent man be blamed, and his memory be defamed. No such defence for me, thank you!"

Petray laughed patronisingly.

"My good friend, you are an idealist and always will be. What does the 'pope's' reputation matter to you, since he is dead? Do you suppose he troubles as to what men say of him now? And as for the peasants, we can make short work of them by putting them in irons. The defence is perfectly in order; you only have to sign that you accept it."

"Let my hand wither in its chains first," cried the prisoner, "ere I subscribe to such infamy!" and he stretched his wasted hand to heaven.

"Think twice, Raby, before you decide thus," said his tormentor. "If you refuse, you may no longer rely on my help, and then you will just go back to the place you came from."

"Take me there," cried his victim, "but torture me no further, rather kill me outright. But as long as my soul is master of my body, no pains or persecutions shall cause me to forswear my honour and give the lie to truth!"

His anger lent the prisoner an unwonted energy, and Petray fairly quailed as Raby dashed up to him and attempted to tear the doc.u.ment from his hand; between them it was torn in two, but the leaves were stained with blood!

Petray was beside himself with rage; he hastily called for the gaoler and the heydukes, who shortly entered, followed by Laskoy.

"He is an abandoned wretch, a traitor, a madman," cried Petray. "He has flown at me, and tried to murder me. Put him in irons again directly!"

"Out with the fetters," cried Laskoy. "Where are the heaviest ones?"

And they tore off the bandages from Raby's wounded limbs, and called the locksmith to rivet them afresh.

But that functionary revolted at this fresh act of cruelty against a helpless invalid. "I won't do it," he said defiantly. "From this hour I serve the authorities no longer; I will have no part in such cruel injustice!" And so saying he left them, never to appear again.

At last, after searching Pesth in vain, they found a locksmith in Pilis to do the work.

But when they thrust Raby back again into his icy dungeon, he cried, as the door closed upon his tormentors, "I am not dead yet."

CHAPTER XLV.

"But I'll take care that you soon will be," muttered the gaoler, as he fettered the prisoner afresh to the wall, "and I've orders to visit you twice every day, so that you may not carry on any of your accursed necromancy in the cell."

The next time his rations were brought him, it occurred to Raby that the bread was strewn with a white powder. He had often complained of it not being salted, but this did not look like salt, and as he was not hungry, he did not attempt to eat it.

That evening when it was dark, he heard the well-remembered voice again from the floor above.

"Poor Raby," it whispered, "are you there?"

And on his ready answer, came the caution: "Do not eat of the bread they have brought you, it is poisoned."

The prisoner had suspected as much, but what was he to do? There was nothing for it but to die of hunger, it seemed.

"Examine the cane I am pushing down" came the voice again, and a minute or two later, appeared the cane whose hollow had already brought him so much. This time it was filled with chocolate, and there was enough to last him till the morning. But what was he to drink?

"Pour the water out of the pitcher, and through the cane I will fill it with fresh," suggested the voice, and he hastened to obey.

The next morning the gaoler saw with dismay that his prisoner was still alive, and apparently uninjured by his supper, yet it would have killed most men. However, he had not eaten much of it to be sure, judging by the little that had disappeared.

And when his back was turned, once more came the voice calling to Raby, and this time it brought bad news indeed.

"The Emperor has gone," it said, "he sought for you, but could find no trace of you. They told him you had been released, so he left in that belief."

"Only give me writing materials," pleaded Raby earnestly.

"I cannot, as soon as you are convicted of having them in the cell, you are to be beheaded immediately. Besides, no one knows where the Emperor is; they say he is in Turkey."

The threat was for Raby but one more spur to action, and he was defiant, and pleaded no longer with his protectress. He had hidden a morsel of paper in his wretched bed, and on this he wrote with a straw for pen, with a drop of his own blood for ink, for he had no other. When it was dry, he rolled it up and concealed it in a straw-stalk.

Then he waited till the next time his cell was being swept out by a heyduke, who was the one who had formerly brought him the pitcher with the false bottom. Raby gave his missive to him, and whispered, "This is worth a hundred ducats." The man understood, and took the straw.

That was Mathias Raby's last attempt at freedom.

From that day forward, all sorts of threats were used to make him sign Petray's paper, and sometimes they kept him so long under examination in the court, that he fainted from sheer exhaustion.

One night the door opened, and Janosics appeared with three men, one of whom bore a brazier of burning coals, another a pair of pincers, and in the third he recognised the public executioner of Pesth.

"I'll soon make the stubborn fellow yield," cried the castellan brutally; "let's see if this won't bend him! Now, gentlemen, do your duty; strip him, and torture him till he confesses his crimes."

Raby was dumb with horror. They tore his clothes from him, but the sight of the prisoner's haggard face and emaciated figure smote the heart even of the executioner with a sudden pity.

"My good Janosics," he said, "I won't torment the poor wretch, not if you give me the whole a.s.sembly House for doing such work."

And with that, he put on his coat, seized the water-pitcher which stood by Raby's bed, and extinguished the coals, so that the cell was plunged in sudden darkness. Then the whole crew withdrew quarrelling among themselves.

When Raby brought the occurrence to the notice of the court the following day, they only laughed, and said he had been dreaming!

CHAPTER XLVI.

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.