The indictment which set forth how Ráby by the help of diabolic arts, had forcibly broken out of custody, and fled to another country, was read. It called for five and twenty years' solitary imprisonment, together with public chastisement; which should allow of his being at appointed intervals set in the public stocks, with a placard showing the nature of his crime hung round his neck. Ráby, in his defence, demanded that the judges should call one of the twenty men who had forcibly seized him the night of his flight; this was, he said, exacted by the Emperor in his instructions as to the trial. Laskóy struck the table with his fist. "That is not true," he said, "it is not in his Majesty's instructions." "I have seen it myself," said Ráby, "the Emperor gave it into my own hands to read." At these words there was a perfect outburst of wrath and indignation from the whole company, so that Ráby could not speak for the uproar; when the noise had quieted down, he went on: "The men who freed me are not forthcoming as witnesses. But there are two at least, who must know what happened that night, and this is the heyduke who stood before the door of my cell, and the other who kept the gate. Though I did not see them I know what their names were, for I heard the castellan address them as Sipos and Nagy." "Let them be brought in," said Laskóy to the castellan with a meaning grimace. But it was Ráby's turn to be astonished when the witnesses entered. For there before him, stood his two travelling companions, the pretended pig-dealer, Kurovics, and his comrade, who had accompanied him to Vienna! And these, it appeared, were the two heydukes who had been commissioned to play this trick upon their unsuspecting victim. Ráby's brain fairly reeled at the thought of the lying fraud to which he had been forced to lend himself. But the examination of Sipos was beginning. "It seems you were the guard at the door of the prisoner's cell, the night of his escape?" questioned the judge. "Do you know what happened?" The witness groaned, and murmured something incoherent. "Tell us what you know. The truth, out with it!" as the man hesitated. "Ah, how can I say it!" exclaimed the fellow, while the gaoler shook his fist at him menacingly. "I'll tell all," he said, "just as it happened. The gaoler ordered four and twenty of us heydukes to disguise ourselves as Turks, then to break open the door of the prisoner's cell, and put on him a peasant girl's dress and escort him to Vienna in this disguise. He gave us money for the journey, and told us the Pesth magistracy had ordered it." At this outspoken testimony, Ráby could hardly contain himself, he stamped on the floor till his irons rang again. So the whole intrigue was manifest! His enemies themselves had hatched this conspiracy against him, and now they dared to condemn the victim of their own wicked plot!