"But I'll take care that you soon will be," muttered the gaoler, as he fettered the prisoner afresh to the wall, "and I've orders to visit you twice every day, so that you may not carry on any of your accursed necromancy in the cell."

The next time his rations were brought him, it occurred to RÁby that the bread was strewn with a white powder. He had often complained of it not being salted, but this did not look like salt, and as he was not hungry, he did not attempt to eat it.

That evening when it was dark, he heard the well-remembered voice again from the floor above.

"Poor RÁby," it whispered, "are you there?"

And on his ready answer, came the caution: "Do not eat of the bread they have brought you, it is poisoned."

The prisoner had suspected as much, but what was he to do? There was nothing for it but to die of hunger, it seemed.

"Examine the cane I am pushing down" came the voice again, and a minute or two later, appeared the cane whose hollow had already brought him so much. This time it was filled with chocolate, and there was enough to last him till the morning. But what was he to drink?

"Pour the water out of the pitcher, and through the cane I will fill it with fresh," suggested the voice, and he hastened to obey.

The next morning the gaoler saw with dismay that his prisoner was still alive, and apparently uninjured by his supper, yet it would have killed most men. However, he had not eaten much of it to be sure, judging by the little that had disappeared.

And when his back was turned, once more came the voice calling to RÁby, and this time it brought bad news indeed.

"The Emperor has gone," it said, "he sought for you, but could find no trace of you. They told him you had been released, so he left in that belief."

"Only give me writing materials," pleaded RÁby earnestly.

"I cannot, as soon as you are convicted of having them in the cell, you are to be beheaded immediately. Besides, no one knows where the Emperor is; they say he is in Turkey."

The threat was for RÁby but one more spur to action, and he was defiant, and pleaded no longer with his protectress. He had hidden a morsel of paper in his wretched bed, and on this he wrote with a straw for pen, with a drop of his own blood for ink, for he had no other. When it was dry, he rolled it up and concealed it in a straw-stalk.Then he waited till the next time his cell was being swept out by a heyduke, who was the one who had formerly brought him the pitcher with the false bottom. RÁby gave his missive to him, and whispered, "This is worth a hundred ducats." The man understood, and took the straw.

That was Mathias RÁby's last attempt at freedom.

From that day forward, all sorts of threats were used to make him sign Petray's paper, and sometimes they kept him so long under examination in the court, that he fainted from sheer exhaustion.

One night the door opened, and Janosics appeared with three men, one of whom bore a brazier of burning coals, another a pair of pincers, and in the third he recognised the public executioner of Pesth.

"I'll soon make the stubborn fellow yield," cried the castellan brutally; "let's see if this won't bend him! Now, gentlemen, do your duty; strip him, and torture him till he confesses his crimes."

RÁby was dumb with horror. They tore his clothes from him, but the sight of the prisoner's haggard face and emaciated figure smote the heart even of the executioner with a sudden pity.

"My good Janosics," he said, "I won't torment the poor wretch, not if you give me the whole Assembly House for doing such work."

And with that, he put on his coat, seized the water-pitcher which stood by RÁby's bed, and extinguished the coals, so that the cell was plunged in sudden darkness. Then the whole crew withdrew quarrelling among themselves.

When RÁby brought the occurrence to the notice of the court the following day, they only laughed, and said he had been dreaming!