The Strange Story of Rab Ráby

by Mór Jókai

Ráby protested against the idea of flight, but they overpowered his resistance, and made a show of armed force. "Silence, or you are a dead man," was their only answer to his protestations, and the prisoner, weak and enfeebled as he was by his privations, and dazed by the sudden surprise which had thus overtaken him, fell at last in a dead faint and lost all consciousness.

When he came to himself, he was dressed as a woman, in the coloured bodice and embroidered apron of the Serb peasant girl, and his hair tied with gay ribbons; it was for this, no doubt, that he had been shaven.

Ráby's entreaties availed nothing. In vain he implored them to desist, and reminded them the military would be sent to overtake them, and then all would be over! His representations achieved nothing with his rescuers, and finally a rough, but powerful-looking fellow of the party seized Ráby and carried him off on his back out of the cell, followed by the whole crew shouting and howling. The inhabitants of the Assembly House must have been stone deaf, had they not been aroused by the tumult. The band dashed in the moonlight through the court and gateway, past the guard-room where four-and-twenty were wont to sleep, without being questioned by a single soul as to their escapade.

It was towards the Kecskemét gate that they hurried, as the likeliest one to be open, so as to get off thus with least delay, and thence away to the river-bank.

At that time, communication with the other side of the Danube was kept up by a so-called "flying-bridge," that was a work of art in its archaic way, consisting of a flat raft-like contrivance, whereto was attached a thick cable, which half a dozen small boats served to keep out of the water. Behind the last boat, at the so-called "Nun's Ferry," below Hare Island, the cable was fast anchored. Linked to this cable, the raft was towed by a single oar to and fro. At night the ferry was not generally used and the ferry-men were not there, but this time they were at their posts ready for the expected passengers. The masked Turks took their places on it without delay, and off they drifted.

Poor Ráby was trembling in every limb, principally from the bitter cold of the December night, which, after his long confinement from the outer air, struck his senses with the sharpness of a knife. Moreover, he was not quite sure that these strange rescuers would not throw him overboard into the river, to find there an unknown and unhonoured grave.

However, they did nothing of the kind, but the party reached the other side safely. There horses, ready saddled, awaited them, and a coach and four. Three of the sham Turks sprang into the vehicle, and dragged Ráby with them. The rest mounted the horses, and they took the way along the Old Buda road.

One of the escort had the kindness to throw his cloak over the freezing prisoner, the coach leading the way, the riders following. But gradually the horsemen dropped off till, when they reached Vörösvár, not one was to be seen.

By this time the released prisoner had succumbed to the unaccustomed strain on his already exhausted and overwrought nerves, and had lost all consciousness of what was going on around him, so that he had to be lifted out of the carriage in a swoon when they stopped at an inn.

When he awoke from his stupor late the next morning, he was in a comfortable bed. Only two of his late companions were to be seen, and they no longer wore Turkish dress, but the garb of the well-to-do Serb peasant, and, indeed, turned out to be respectable peasant-proprietors of Szent-Endre.