"Will the accused deny this impeachment by proving an _alibi_?" "I abstain from making such a defence," answered Ráby, "and only ask to be confronted with my accuser." The first witness for the prosecution stepped forward in the person of the coachman, whose appearance betokened him to be a rogue of the first water, and obviously ready to swear to anything, provided he were well paid for it. According to the customary formula, he was questioned as to his antecedents, and owned up unconcernedly to having himself been nine times in prison. When asked if he recognised in Ráby the robber who had waylaid the Jew Rotheisel, he answered promptly: "Recognise him again, I should just think so! There can be no question of their not being one and the same. Only then he happened to be wearing a black wig, and a curly moustache, with a peasant's cloak over his shoulder. But I knew it was Mr. Ráby directly I heard his voice." Ráby, addressing the court, now spoke in Latin, knowing that the peasants were ignorant of that language, "I protest against the evidence of this witness; I know him for the coachman who drove the official who came to bribe me. This witness therefore is not impartial." The prosecutor replied that this could not be proven, but Ráby interrupted him whilst he turned to the witness and said to him in Magyar, "Pray how could you have recognised my voice since I have never spoken to you in all my life?" "Ay, does not the worshipful gentleman remember that I drove Mr. Paprika into his courtyard in the new coach and four. The gentleman talked so loudly then, that the deafest man must have heard him." And thereby the case against Ráby fell to the ground. It must in fairness be admitted that on this, as on later occasions, many upright and honourable men sat in the jury who were quite ready to take Ráby's part, though they were in a minority. One such here protested against such a witness being heard on oath, and the coachman was consequently discharged. Now, however, old Abraham, supported by his two sons, entered the room, his head still bound up on account of his wound, his legs trembling visibly under him. "Abraham Rotheisel," said the president, "tell us plainly, how was the attack on you made?" "I tell nothing of the kind," retorted the Jew. "I have not come here to lay a complaint. Gyöngyöm Miska is not here. You have summoned me simply to bear witness that it was not Mr. Ráby who robbed me, and that I willingly do." "Think of what you are doing, Abraham! It was dark, you could not see your assailant's face, remember." "Ay, if it had been but Egyptian darkness, and if I had been as blind as Tobit, nay, if the highwayman and Mr. Ráby had been as like to one another as two peas, yet I will swear it was not Mathias Ráby, whom I have known from his childhood, ever since he was a baby. Moreover, neither his face nor figure resembled in the least those of the man who robbed me."