Had Ráby seen one of his own kith and kin dead before him, he could not have grieved more than he did for this feathered friend. Nor did he get any sympathy from the gaoler, who only laughed when he heard of it. But Ráby implored him not to tell Mariska of the fate of her pet.
That official, however, promptly reported the whole affair to Mariska, and took care to carry her the dead bird. Bitterly she wept over her favourite, but remembering her father might see she had been crying, she soon dried her eyes.
But Ráby must not be alone; that was the main thing. So she did not long delay in sending another feathered pet, a titmouse this time, in a cage, which she intrusted to the gaoler to carry to the prisoner, but on no account to let him know who sent it. As if Ráby would not guess!
The warder placed the cage on the prisoner's bed, murmured some excuse for bringing it, and left him. He did not see Ráby fall upon his knees before the cage in a transport of almost hysterical joy. And the little bird soon became as dear to him as the magpie had been.
But one evening, when he came in from the wearisome cross-examination that seemed as if it would never end, lo, and behold, there lay the titmouse dead in his cage. Someone had fed him with poisoned flies.
Ráby implored the gaoler not to bring him any more birds. Henceforth he determined not to have these feathered friends sacrificed to him.
All the same, he soon found another pet in the shape of a little mouse, which, like himself, lived in captivity. At first it only timidly put its head out of its hole, and glided shyly and warily along the side of the wall; gradually, however, it perceived that the cell's occupant had strewn bread-crumbs on the floor, and furtively yet nimbly it picked them up. And by degrees it came nearer to the prisoner, and presently ventured to run up his knees and dared to eat the crumbs that the stranger hand held, and finally, in that same hand, sat on its hind legs, looking at Ráby with the most whimsical expression imaginable on its diminutive face.
Poor Ráby! The mouse might well look at him; perhaps it wondered who this haggard, unkempt man was, with the tangled growth of unshaven beard and lank hair drooping over the hollow eyes, framing a pale, lean face, disfigured by suffering.
This was the beginning of their strange friendship. The mouse would sport round him the whole day, or gambol about on his shoulder, and at night, would, as he lay on his plank bed, watch him from the ceiling, with bright, friendly eyes. Did Ráby call to it, it would answer him with a little responsive squeak, and try to gnaw the links of the chain that bound the prisoner, with its tiny teeth. But did anyone enter, the mouse would hurry back into its hole.
But alas, there came a time when he had to lose even this humble companion. One evening he missed him, and only found the poor little beast dead in a corner—someone, apparently, having placed rat-poison in its hole. What the prisoner's feelings were, words do not express; his whole heart welled over with bitterness at this fresh proof of the malice of his enemies. They were, indeed, evil hearts that could find their pleasure in thus tormenting their victim.