The Strange Story of Rab Raby Part 50

"What?" cried Laskoy, "I, compa.s.sing Raby's ruin? What do you mean? Who but you managed the whole business, I should like to know!"

"That's a lie!" retorted his antagonist, and the strife promised to be endless, for the others now joined in l.u.s.tily, and swords were all but drawn.

Tarhalmy took his doc.u.ments under his arm. "I am going," he said, "I prefer to choose my own company."

Meantime, the news of the royal proclamation had spread like wild-fire, and nothing else was talked of. Nagy (otherwise "Kurovics") hastened to Janosics to impart to him the news that the members of the council were quarrelling as to which one was guilty of Raby's condemnation, and that it would be as well at any rate, it should not be laid at the door of the prison officials.

So the two made for the condemned cell, where Raby had been dragged all but unconscious.

The prisoner imagined they had come to lead him to the galleys.

"No, my friend, thank your stars you are not going there," shouted Janosics, "you are reprieved! You are free!"

And a sudden thrill of joy born of his regained liberty, shot through the exhausted frame of the prisoner, remembering he was not to be scourged at the oar. But then his unbending spirit rea.s.serted itself, and he exclaimed proudly, "I need no man's grace, and I accept none of your favours, I would rather die here!"

"You won't then do anything of the kind," retorted the gaoler, "but you will just march! Here, thrust him out, you fellows," and he called up a couple of warders who roughly seized the prisoner between them, and carried him in spite of his struggles into the courtyard below. There was a small iron door which led into a side thoroughfare, and this Janosics opened and pushed Raby through it, out into the street the other side.

There they left him on the cobbles, in a dead faint from the efforts he had made, and there he lay like a lifeless log. The prison authorities did not care on whom the blame for detaining Raby fell, but they were determined it should not lay with them.

Janosics returned whistling into his room. But suddenly he ceased to whistle; something seemed to be throttling him. His limbs too were convulsed by a sudden tremor, and horrible spasms of pain shot through his whole body. When he tried to cry out, he failed to utter a sound, and only blood came from his mouth. And still that awful sensation of strangulation oppressed him, so that he tugged at the kerchief about his throat to get it off; it was the one Fruzsinka had worn. And the words of the dead woman, her warning that none should come near her, came back to him.

The doctor he sent for, directly he saw his patient, exclaimed in horror, "This is the oriental plague," for he recognised the symptoms of the fell malady.

And that word at once drove every living soul away from the unhappy man, and he was left writhing in his agony behind the door till he was still, for that meant he was dead. Then they sent two condemned felons to wrap up the corpse in a horse-rug and carry it out into the cemetery there to be buried like a dog. The only thing they troubled after was as to whether enough quicklime had been thrown into the grave.

But Raby lay half-dead on the cobble-stones. There were no other houses in the alley, save the monster barracks, the university hospital, and the great stone rampart of the hinder part of the a.s.sembly House.

As a rule, only one person went up that alley every day, and that was an old Jew named Abraham. He was no longer bound by law to wear the red mantle, and could go about in his black gown and kaftan. With him was a red-haired boy, his youngest son, an intelligent lad who had excellent legs and could run with the best.

But Abraham left him at the corner of the alley and went alone to the little iron door.

There he was accustomed to wait each morning till a heyduke appeared.

Then he would push a paper containing a piece of gold under the door, and receive in exchange another morsel of paper. This contained the latest news of Rab Raby, and Abraham promptly gave it to the youngster waiting at the corner, who forthwith would run with it to Buda, where Mariska was waiting for it.

But on this particular morning, the Jew found no news of Raby, but instead, the prisoner himself, lying on the stones, as one dead.

The old man raised no alarm, nor did he utter a word, but bending over the prostrate man, laid his hand on Raby's heart to see if it yet beat.

When he had satisfied himself that Raby was still alive, Abraham wrapped him up in his warm fur-lined mantle, took him in his arms, and carried him to the corner of the alley, where he and his son between them dragged him into a sedan-chair, and bore him off--whither no one knew!

A voice like the voice of the angels themselves (so it seemed to the half-conscious man who heard it) sweet as the song of the spheres and thrilling with some unwonted harmony which did not seem of this earth, recalled the stricken soul of Mathias Raby back from the shadows of death where it yet lingered.

"May heaven preserve you to us, poor Raby," whispered the voice.

The ex-prisoner awoke from his swoon to find himself in a warm room, whose atmosphere was redolent with some refreshing fragrance, pillowed on soft cushions, while above him were bending two blue eyes that seemed as if they carried in their inmost depths, something of the light of paradise itself. Such eyes, and who could forget them, once having seen them?

But to this day the treasure-chest of Szent-Endre has never been found, so effectually was it hidden from all men.

THE END.