"Not exactly, but you are accused, so that I cannot officially be a party to any correspondence you carry on. Meanwhile, I would suggest you just go upstairs to my own private rooms, where you will find my daughter who will give you pen, ink, and paper, wherewith to write; moreover, she will gladly carry it to the post herself. Then, seeing that the business will be prolonged till evening, you will, I hope, share our homely dinner with us." A blow in the face could hardly have hurt Ráby more than this kindly proposal. For would it not mean meeting Mariska again? But Ráby had a ready excuse for not accepting Tárhalmy's hospitable offer. "I am grateful indeed for your kind invitation, but I am being strictly dieted just now for a nervous complaint, and hardly dare eat anything but dry bread." "Nervous complaint, eh? Why, what does that mean?" "Well, for one thing, I cannot sleep at night." Tárhalmy was just going to give him some good advice, when the tension was broken by the entry of a heyduke coming to announce the arrival of the Jew, who had to be carried in a litter to the court, as he was still weak from the wounds he had received, and could not stand. At the announcement that Abraham was ready to give his testimony on oath, the tribunal formally cited the defendant to appear before them. Ráby recognised a good many of his acquaintances sitting round the table. The tribunal was presided over by Mr. von Laskóy, whose usually merry mood had become serious for awhile. He asked the parties implicated their creed and calling, and all the customary questions. Then a young man, in whom Ráby recognised an old school-fellow, rose, and read out the formal indictment in which Mr. Mathias Ráby of Rába and Mura, gentleman, and an inhabitant of Szent-Endre, was accused of disguising himself as a highwayman named Gyöngyöm Miska, and of robbing peaceable travellers. How on a particular day he had waylaid the Jew, Abraham Rothesel _alias_ Rotheisel, in the Styrian wood, had stunned him with a blow on the head, and had stolen from him the sum of five thousand gulden. The proof whereof being that whilst the said Mathias Ráby was in the neighbourhood without anyone knowing his exact whereabouts, the depredations of the redoubtable robber had been going on. Moreover, it was known to all, that, though Mathias Ráby had inherited no great wealth from his parents, he had, nevertheless, scattered money lavishly on all sides--which fact greatly strengthened suspicion against him. But the most convincing testimony of all would be furnished by the Jew's own driver, who would swear to the identity of the accused with Gyöngyöm Miska. The prosecutors now asked for the witnesses to be sworn, and demanded that the said Mathias Ráby, if convicted, might be hanged, or if his rank forbade that, beheaded. The reading of this impeachment was received by all present with the seriousness befitting the situation. The president then turned to Ráby.