At this Böske was appeased, also she remarked it was a comfort the lady-mistress had taken the embroidered quilt with her, so the thieves were done out of that at any rate.
They found the poor beast, by the well, stiff and dead.
"The brutes!" cried Böske, horrified; "they have drowned him, they have not even left us the dog alive."
Ráby drove the weeping girl into the house and spoke earnestly to her:
"Now, Böske, listen to me. You must never tell anyone what has happened, and that the house has been robbed, for if you do, they may put you in prison again, and you may not get out for years."
With which piece of parting advice Ráby repaired to his uncle's. Here he collected his papers, and stowed them away in the pocket of his coat, he likewise donned his fur mantle, told his uncle shortly what had occurred, and then started to go back home.
It was already nightfall when he took his way down the street to his own home.
As he passed Peter Paprika's house he heard a curious whizzing noise near him, and at the same moment was conscious of having been struck a blow on the side, which so staggered him, it nearly made him lose his balance. He looked round; there was not a soul in sight in the street. He could not imagine from whence the mysterious report had come. But after he had got home, he found a little round perforation on the left side of his coat, which was plainly a bullet hole.
When he drew his papers out of his breast-pocket, out fell a leaden bullet which had evidently bored through so far and been turned aside by the packet of documents.
The whizzing sound our hero had heard had been the report of an air-gun, and had he not placed the papers in his breast-pocket, it would have been all over with him.
The jest was surely now at an end, said Ráby to himself; it was no use trifling with these people but best to go straight to the point with them.
So the next day he set out for Vienna, nor did he conceal the purport of his journey. For he had to induce the Emperor to remove the Szent-Endre authorities and order a new municipal body to be set up in their place. As a land-owner, he had full right to demand this to be done.
Meanwhile, he left Böske to keep house, only stipulating she should have someone to be with her in his absence.