The Strange Story of Rab Ráby

  CHAPTER XLVIII.

  It is time to return to Frau Fruzsinka, and to explain how she had cometo be a prisoner under the same roof as her husband.

  When Fruzsinka found that Raby was, in spite of the efforts she had madeto save him, a prisoner in Pesth, her rage and disgust knew no bounds.The abandoned woman still carried on her miserable masquerade in man'sattire, and as a pretended highwayman, continued to strike terror intothe hearts of the countryside.

  One night, however, she was taken with what seemed a sudden faintness,and seeking shelter in a peasant's hut, was betrayed by the owner to theheydukes, and carried off by her captors to the prison in Pesth. By thetime she arrived there, she was evidently seriously ill, and appeared tobe in a high fever, although it never occurred to the prison authoritiesthat her malady might be infectious.

  Janosics, who had hailed her arrival with ill-concealed delight,perceiving his prisoner wore a richly embroidered kerchief round herneck, proceeded to annex it, and bind it round his own. But this roughundressing, to which she was subjected as a culprit, was too much forFruzsinka, and she soon betrayed her sex by her tears at the roughtreatment Janosics meted out to her.

  As might be expected, the news soon spread that this was no highwayman,but a woman, and she too of noble family.

  Tarhalmy recognised her at once, and he tingled with shame at thethought of Mathias Raby's wife being treated as a common felon. And thecase of a woman of Fruzsinka's position being sent there was so rarethat there was literally no provision for such prisoners in thebuilding, and so it came to pass that the disused "archive-room," as itwas called, the room where Mariska had been able to communicate withRaby, was that now appointed for Fruzsinka.

  "You will be rewarded for this," gasped the wretched woman. "I shall nottrouble you long, for I shall not live over to-morrow."

  And when Tarhalmy, having found a maid to wait on her, was leaving theroom, she called him back to whisper:

  "I know you have a daughter you love dearly. Send her away immediatelyfrom this house, so she escape the contagion I have brought with me."

  Tarhalmy hastened to warn Mariska that she might go to the house of heraunt at Buda, and told her who the prisoner really was.

  But the girl was terrified at the thought of leaving Raby, perhaps tostarve, nor did she shrink at the idea of nursing Fruzsinka, but beggedher father to let her remain at home, and tend the sick woman.

  But Tarhalmy would not let her carry her self-abnegation so far.

  Meantime, the doctor came, and deceived by the patient's symptoms, whichseemed to him those of an ordinary fever, made a false diagnosis ofFruzsinka's case, and failed to recognise her malady for what it reallywas--the oriental plague, which was then raging in the near East.

  But the plague-stricken woman would not allow a soul to come near her,and refused all attempt at help or consolation, for she, being aCalvinist, would not even see the kindly Capuchin friar who came tooffer his services.

  And Mariska was allowed to remain till the news of Lievenkopp'sthreatening mission determined her father to send her away.

  As for that officer's demand, it was, deemed Tarhalmy, a question to besettled by the Pesth tribunal, and the still closed door of theprisoner's dungeon would be the answer to the Emperor's mandate, whilstthe prisoner himself, when it came to the execution of justice, shouldknow who was master in Pesth!

  Surely Tarhalmy had good reasons for sending his daughter away.

  Thus was Raby bereft of his guardian-angel, and so it came to pass thathis evil genius, his wretched wife, lay dying in the room over hisdungeon.

  But Fruzsinka's prophecy came true; she died the next day, and waspromptly buried. No one mourned the dead woman, as no one had excusedher.