"Pray who are your accomplices who helped you in your correspondence?" demanded his accuser angrily.
"No one and everyone body. The bare walls, the air itself, the iron door, my fetters, my guards—all are my accomplices if you like to call them so."
"Well, we will just make your chains a little faster so you can't move about quite so easily, my friend, that's all."
"That avails you nothing," exclaimed Ráby. "Their clanking sounds even now in the ears of one who is your imperial lord and master, and will shortly be here in his city of Pesth to sit in judgment upon you. Let the guilty tremble before him, I have no need to do so."
These bold words enraged the judge beyond measure. How did Ráby know that the Emperor was about to come to Pesth for the military manœuvres, and there review the troops in person. Did he know as well that the Szent-Endre people were only biding their time to send a deputation to the Kaiser to ask for Ráby's release, and to demand an inquiry into the conduct of the Pesth authorities in imprisoning him. It never occurred to them that an ordinary water-pitcher with a false bottom held the letters which Ráby wrote and received, and that each heyduke who carried it, was an involuntary courier.
In vain did they interrogate the heyduke who brought it, and ordered him to be beaten; for each stroke the man received, he was sent by some unknown hand a gold piece, so he was not inclined to complain.
When the Emperor did arrive in Pesth, the following August, he learned with surprise that his emissary was still detained in prison. He straightway sent for the head magistrate, expressed his displeasure, and ordered Ráby's immediate release on pain of all the authorities of the city being dismissed from office. This was an order which had to be obeyed.
So forthwith in the Emperor's presence, the mandate was sent that Mathias Ráby be immediately released from custody. The command was peremptory and admitted of no evasion.
But the next night someone thrust under the door of Ráby's cell, a note containing these words:
"Be ready this night! Your true friends are coming to fetch you away. They will overpower the gaoler, take away the keys from him, and set you free."