The Strange Story of Rab Ráby

  CHAPTER XLVII.

  Raby no longer dreaded the poisoned food that he expected his gaoler tobring him, but next morning, strange to say, Janosics appeared withempty 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. Nomore 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, andyou are to be moved into better quarters. You know, I daresay, as wellas I can tell you, what all this means."

  Raby shrugged his shoulders.

  "Well, it means that to-day your death-sentence is to be formallyapproved in court, and that the scaffold is your destination. Till then,you are to be kept in the condemned cell, and have everything you likeas befits a criminal under sentence of death, and enjoy yourself whileyou may."

  It was too true, and no jest. The locksmith came and filed off theprisoner's fetters once more, and then the barber shaved him, but thecloseness with which his hair was cut, signified only too clearly itwas 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 whichhe had previously appealed was now confirmed by the higher court, andthat he must prepare to die forthwith.

  He heard the decision with strange indifference, but all now he longedfor, 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 delicaciesimaginable.

  This was the "condemned cell," and to it many a kind-hearted housewifein those days was accustomed to send the pick of her larder, to providea good dinner for those whose earthly meals were numbered--a form ofcharity at that time very much practised by the housekeepers of Pesth.

  "Now, Raby, you can eat and drink to your heart's content," criedJanosics. "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 thereach of the prisoner.

  But Raby had no appetite, and had other preoccupations than those of thetable, to fill his mind just then.

  * * * * *

  Meanwhile, Raby's message had not been forgotten by the heyduke to whomhe had entrusted it. Old Abraham had taken it to the Emperor who, heheard, was laid up sick in the capital, and it had been promptly readand acted upon. Three days later, Colonel Lievenkopp, just appointed thecommandant at Pesth, sought out the governor, and demanded immediateaudience on urgent matters of state.

  He had, in fact, a message from the Emperor. "Thanks, Colonel, leave itthere; 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 havethe mandate read in my presence."

  The words staggered the governor. He, the virtual, if not the nominalruler of Hungary, to be spoken to like this, and to have the law laiddown in this fashion to him!

  "Hoity-toity! I have other things to do! Suppose, too, I am not inclinedto read it?"

  "Then your Excellency will permit me to observe that I am empowered toproceed to extreme measures. In the event of your Excellency not readingthat letter at once, I am commissioned to call in half a dozen officersof public health who are waiting outside, with a regimental surgeon, forthe purpose of placing your Excellency in a strait-waistcoat, andescorting 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 ofthe crown? Do you mean to say the Emperor said that, that he has writtenit? 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 asfollows:

  "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 mewith a patent for the Pesth magistracy, whereby he demands the instantrelease of Mr. Mathias Raby; in the case of non-obedience, by teno'clock to-morrow, I am ordered to enforce its execution by a batteryand a corresponding number of soldiers, and if the prisoner is notbrought out, to storm the Assembly House forthwith, and release Mr. Rabyfrom captivity."

  "Storm the Assembly House?" stammered the magnate, dazed with thesuggestion. "Stir up civil war just for the sake of one miserableculprit. Oh, that fellow will be the death of me!"

  And the wretched man staggered as with a sudden blow, and blindly clungto a chair for support to prevent him from falling. He was blue in theface, his clenched hand still grasping the letter; it was the beginningof an apoplectic fit.

  Lievenkopp hastened to send one of the secretaries for a doctor, but itwas already too late; when the surgeon arrived to bleed him, thegovernor was beyond such help. Thus passed one more actor in thismemorable tragedy of Rab Raby.