Tárhalmy took his documents under his arm. "I am going," he said, "I prefer to choose my own company."
Meantime, the news of the royal proclamation had spread like wild-fire, and nothing else was talked of. Nagy (otherwise "Kurovics") hastened to Janosics to impart to him the news that the members of the council were quarrelling as to which one was guilty of Ráby's condemnation, and that it would be as well at any rate, it should not be laid at the door of the prison officials.
So the two made for the condemned cell, where Ráby had been dragged all but unconscious.
The prisoner imagined they had come to lead him to the galleys.
"No, my friend, thank your stars you are not going there," shouted Janosics, "you are reprieved! You are free!"
And a sudden thrill of joy born of his regained liberty, shot through the exhausted frame of the prisoner, remembering he was not to be scourged at the oar. But then his unbending spirit reasserted itself, and he exclaimed proudly, "I need no man's grace, and I accept none of your favours, I would rather die here!"
"You won't then do anything of the kind," retorted the gaoler, "but you will just march! Here, thrust him out, you fellows," and he called up a couple of warders who roughly seized the prisoner between them, and carried him in spite of his struggles into the courtyard below. There was a small iron door which led into a side thoroughfare, and this Janosics opened and pushed Ráby through it, out into the street the other side.
There they left him on the cobbles, in a dead faint from the efforts he had made, and there he lay like a lifeless log. The prison authorities did not care on whom the blame for detaining Ráby fell, but they were determined it should not lay with them.
Janosics returned whistling into his room. But suddenly he ceased to whistle; something seemed to be throttling him. His limbs too were convulsed by a sudden tremor, and horrible spasms of pain shot through his whole body. When he tried to cry out, he failed to utter a sound, and only blood came from his mouth. And still that awful sensation of strangulation oppressed him, so that he tugged at the kerchief about his throat to get it off; it was the one Fruzsinka had worn. And the words of the dead woman, her warning that none should come near her, came back to him.