Ráby drove the weeping girl into the house and spoke earnestly to her:
"Now, Böske, listen to me. You must never tell anyone what has happened, and that the house has been robbed, for if you do, they may put you in prison again, and you may not get out for years."
With which piece of parting advice Ráby repaired to his uncle's. Here he collected his papers, and stowed them away in the pocket of his coat, he likewise donned his fur mantle, told his uncle shortly what had occurred, and then started to go back home.
It was already nightfall when he took his way down the street to his own home.
As he passed Peter Paprika's house he heard a curious whizzing noise near him, and at the same moment was conscious of having been struck a blow on the side, which so staggered him, it nearly made him lose his balance. He looked round; there was not a soul in sight in the street. He could not imagine from whence the mysterious report had come. But after he had got home, he found a little round perforation on the left side of his coat, which was plainly a bullet hole.
When he drew his papers out of his breast-pocket, out fell a leaden bullet which had evidently bored through so far and been turned aside by the packet of documents.
The whizzing sound our hero had heard had been the report of an air-gun, and had he not placed the papers in his breast-pocket, it would have been all over with him.
CHAPTER XXI.
The jest was surely now at an end, said Ráby to himself; it was no use trifling with these people but best to go straight to the point with them.