"Please be good enough to get in," said their conductor.
The prisoner was pushed in first, and the two commissioners dutifully prepared to follow him.
"However are we going to make our way through the ice?" asked Plötzlich anxiously.
"You'll soon see," was the ready answer.
The helmsman cut her adrift, and the rowers pushed from the shore; but scarcely had they put off, before a huge ice-floe drove them back again.
"Ship your oars," roared the ferry-man, and the rowers dexterously trimmed the boat which had well-nigh capsized under the blow, but for their skill.
It was too much for the Vienna officials. "We protest in the Emperor's name!" they yelled, whilst Plötzlich, in mingled fear and anger cried, "I am bound under oath not to allow anyone to cross the river when it is unnavigable through ice, and I won't transgress my own rules, so take us back to the shore!"
And so back they came, and the two Viennese speedily disembarked. "And Mr. Ráby as well," they cried.
"Not he!" laughed the provost triumphantly. "You needn't trouble your heads about him. Whosoever is born to be hanged will not be drowned, of that you may be sure."
And once more they put off on their perilous journey, while the police-agents took out their red pocket-books and made formal memoranda of what had just happened. Meanwhile, with much trouble and long delay, Ráby and his custodians reached the other side, not without narrowly escaping destruction.