Poor Ráby was trembling in every limb, principally from the bitter cold of the December night, which, after his long confinement from the outer air, struck his senses with the sharpness of a knife. Moreover, he was not quite sure that these strange rescuers would not throw him overboard into the river, to find there an unknown and unhonoured grave.
However, they did nothing of the kind, but the party reached the other side safely. There horses, ready saddled, awaited them, and a coach and four. Three of the sham Turks sprang into the vehicle, and dragged Ráby with them. The rest mounted the horses, and they took the way along the Old Buda road.
One of the escort had the kindness to throw his cloak over the freezing prisoner, the coach leading the way, the riders following. But gradually the horsemen dropped off till, when they reached Vörösvár, not one was to be seen.
By this time the released prisoner had succumbed to the unaccustomed strain on his already exhausted and overwrought nerves, and had lost all consciousness of what was going on around him, so that he had to be lifted out of the carriage in a swoon when they stopped at an inn.
When he awoke from his stupor late the next morning, he was in a comfortable bed. Only two of his late companions were to be seen, and they no longer wore Turkish dress, but the garb of the well-to-do Serb peasant, and, indeed, turned out to be respectable peasant-proprietors of Szent-Endre.
Yet neither their names nor faces were known to Ráby.
For the rest, his two guardians showed themselves full of consideration for their patient. They procured him warm clothing, caused light invalid food to be prepared for him, and begged him not to be too anxious to try his strength with the journey. When Ráby had sufficiently rested, the coachman received orders to drive slowly, so that it might not exhaust the traveller, and they set out again, not without many misgivings from the fugitive as to whether they could not be overtaken and their flight intercepted.
One of his companions, who told him his name was Kurovics, besought him to make his mind easy on this score. He pointed out how they would get the start of the authorities before these could mobilise their forces. Then no one knew of the disguise in which Ráby had escaped; from the description which the Pesth court would issue for his recovery, no one would recognise him, so he had no cause for fear.