They exchanged greetings with a certain amount of embarrassment, and Petray's contemptuous tone in opening up the conversation (which Ráby had willingly avoided), was not lost on the other. "Well met, friend! I beg pardon for disturbing you, but you are the very man I wanted to see," said Petray, as he sat down beside them. "Yes," he went on, "about that letter which you have written to the Emperor." "What do you mean?" cried Ráby, beside himself with astonishment. "Why, you know well enough that the municipal council has forbidden complaints to be formulated to the Emperor regarding any matter affecting its internal regulations." "But who can possibly know what my correspondence contains, I should like to know?" "Well we happen to know, because we intercepted the letter at the post-office, you see." "What, you have dared to intercept my correspondence!" cried Ráby enraged. "Yes, and what's more, we have opened the letter and read it, and have submitted it to a committee of inquiry." "But this is an unheard-of insult!" exclaimed Ráby, rising from his seat in uncontrollable anger. "Oh, you are getting angry, are you? I guessed you would be, when you heard it; that's why I begged your pardon when I came in. But it doesn't alter the fact that I am sent to arrest you in the name of the municipality, on a charge of treason against the authorities, and am ordered to commit you to prison forthwith." Petray said all this in such a jesting tone, that the "pope" who had kept his seat at table, imagined he was simply joking. He poured out a glass of wine and offered it to the judge, saying as he did so: "Here have done with your jests, and drink this, your worship; no one believes what you are saying! Come, let us toast one another!" The "pope" was a vigorous, dignified looking man in the prime of life, with a round rosy face. He beamed again with benevolence as he pledged the judge. Yet Petray did not take the proffered glass, but stiffened himself and stood in a judicial attitude, with his hand on the hilt of his sword, while he said in a stern tone: "Here there is no matter for jesting, I am sent by the Pesth County Assembly to arrest Mr. Mathias Ráby as a criminal, wherever I may find him." And with that he stepped to the door and pushed it open. Without, stood half a dozen heydukes armed with swords and carbines and the town provost. At the sight of them, the "pope" turned suddenly pale; his rubicund face became a ghastly grey, his hairs seem to bristle in terror. There was a rattling sound in his throat, and then he fell back senseless on the floor in an apoplectic fit. In vain they strove to revive him. He was dead! Fright, or rather the apoplexy had killed him. And as he was the only living soul who had known the secret of the buried treasure, his death forbade the entrance ever being discovered.