The Red, White, and Green Part 71

However, I tried hard not to despair, and resolved, if need be, to meet my fate bravely.

In this manner more than a fortnight pa.s.sed, when one morning, about two hours after my breakfast of black bread and water, I was surprised to hear the tramp of marching feet, which stopped opposite my cell.

The key turned in the ma.s.sive lock, the door opened, and I was harshly ordered to step outside.

A number of soldiers with bayonets fixed waited. I was placed in the midst of them and hurried away.

These men belonged to an infantry regiment, and were strangers to me, but it was plain they had formed a very unfavourable opinion of my character.

Crossing the square, they halted in front of a low door, and the officer in command of the party signed to me to follow him.

An antechamber was filled with soldiers, fully armed and standing at attention, while their faces were about as human as chiselled stone.

Pa.s.sing through, we entered a second apartment, where a dozen officers were seated round a baize-covered table littered with writing material.

Recognizing that these men held my life in their hands, I looked at them eagerly.

The president's chair was occupied by a tall old man with slightly-stooping shoulders, scanty white hair, and long, drooping, white moustaches.

His face was bronzed, and his breast covered with numerous ribbons and medals, but his blue eyes were rather dreamy, and I thought he had much ado to keep himself awake.

The officers who flanked him on either side of the table were of various ages, and belonged to different branches of the service, but they all sat as immovable as statues.

The silence was so weird and oppressive that I welcomed the sound of the president's voice when he began the proceedings by asking my name.

"George Botskay," I proudly answered.

"Captain in the rebel army?" he went on, reading from a slip of paper.

"Captain on the staff of General Gorgei, commander-in-chief of the Hungarian national forces," I replied.

One of the stone griffins started into life at this, but the president petrified him again by a wave of the hand.

"Why did you not surrender with your leader?"

"Because I was absent on special duty."

"It is stated here," said he, tapping the paper, "that you were at Vilagos on the thirteenth of August."

"I was, but not with the army."

The other stone men showed signs of life now, and the old warrior continued his examination.

"Was it not your duty, as a soldier of honour, to obey your chief's orders, and to give yourself up to the proper authorities?"

"That view of the question did not strike me," I answered, and quite honestly too. "I was not with the army, and therefore did not consider myself included in the surrender."

"You preferred instead to join the band of a notorious robber?"

"That is false," I cried--"utterly false!"

The president, though he did not look like a merciful man, was exceedingly polite.

"I am afraid," he said, "that the facts are against you. Colonel von Theyer, one of our best officers--"

"A rebel turncoat," I interrupted angrily.

"I do not think, Herr Botskay, that abuse of a trusted officer will do your case any good. His report expressly states that you were discovered with this band of robbers. Do you deny the truth of the charge?"

"I cannot; but my being there was the result of blind chance."

The griffins actually smiled, which convinced me I was getting deeper into the mire, and that feeling was not lessened when the president said softly, "An unlucky chance for you, Herr Botskay, I fear."

"It is the truth for all that," I said stoutly.

"Did Count Beula meet the robbers by accident also?"

"I cannot say. I know nothing of him."

"Here again my information differs from your statement. The count was well known as an abettor of the ma.s.sacres in Vienna, and it is laid down here that you were in personal communication with him at the beginning of the insurrection. Is that so?"

The ground seemed to be slipping from under me.

"Count Beula was never a friend of mine," I said.

"One does not always make a friend of an accomplice," replied the president suavely. "But here is another question. Is it true that on any single occasion you attended a meeting of the Hungarian Committee?"

"That is easily explained," I began. "When--"

"Pardon me, general," interrupted one of my judges, "but I should like the prisoner to give a direct answer--yes or no--to the question. It is a simple matter. Did he or did he not, in October of 1848, attend a meeting of the Hungarian Committee?"

"If you will not allow me to explain, I shall refuse to answer at all,"

I exclaimed.

"Then," said the man who had spoken, "we shall be forced to draw our own conclusions;" and he sat down very red, but triumphant, amid a hum of approval.

"There is one other matter on which you might like to say a word,"

remarked the president blandly, "and that is the doing to death of the trooper Ober."

To this I replied that the unfortunate man had not met his death at my hands, nor was I in any way responsible for the striking of the fatal blow.

Here again I was confronted by further proof of how finely my enemy had woven the meshes of my net.

According to the sworn evidence of the man Franz, he had seen the knife in my hand, and he had also seen me stab the hapless trooper to the heart.

On the evidence supplied to them my judges could so easily find me guilty of almost any crime that I took little interest in the rest of the proceedings.

Von Theyer had made such a skilful blend of fact and fiction that his story had all the appearance of unadulterated truth. On one point alone he had not fulfilled his threat; there was no allusion to the ring and miniature of the dead baron.