The Black Tulip | Page 8

themselves
heard.
"Yes, yes," said Cornelius, "I hear these shouts very plainly, but what is
their meaning?"
John opened the window.
"Death to the traitors!" howled the populace.
"Do you hear now, Cornelius?"
"To the traitors! that means us!" said the prisoner, raising his eyes to
heaven and shrugging his shoulders.
"Yes, it means us," repeated John.
"Where is Craeke?"
"At the door of your cell, I suppose."
"Let him enter then."
John opened the door; the faithful servant was waiting on the threshold.
"Come in, Craeke, and mind well what my brother will tell you."
"No, John; it will not suffice to send a verbal message; unfortunately, I
shall be obliged to write."
"And why that?"

"Because Van Baerle will neither give up the parcel nor burn it without
a special command to do so."
"But will you be able to write, poor old fellow?" John asked, with a
look on the scorched and bruised hands of the unfortunate sufferer.
"If I had pen and ink you would soon see," said Cornelius.
"Here is a pencil, at any rate."
"Have you any paper? for they have left me nothing."
"Here, take this Bible, and tear out the fly-leaf."
"Very well, that will do."
"But your writing will be illegible."
"Just leave me alone for that," said Cornelius. "The executioners have
indeed pinched me badly enough, but my hand will not tremble once in
tracing the few lines which are requisite."
And really Cornelius took the pencil and began to write, when through
the white linen bandages drops of blood oozed out which the pressure
of the fingers against the pencil squeezed from the raw flesh.
A cold sweat stood on the brow of the Grand Pensionary.
Cornelius wrote: --
"My dear Godson, --
"Burn the parcel which I have intrusted to you. Burn it without looking
at it, and without opening it, so that its contents may for ever remain
unknown to yourself. Secrets of this description are death to those with
whom they are deposited. Burn it, and you will have saved John and
Cornelius de Witt.
"Farewell, and love me.

"Cornelius de Witt
"August 20th, 1672."
John, with tears in his eyes, wiped off a drop of the noble blood which
had soiled the leaf, and, after having handed the despatch to Craeke
with a last direction, returned to Cornelius, who seemed overcome by
intense pain, and near fainting.
"Now," said he, "when honest Craeke sounds his coxswain's whistle, it
will be a signal of his being clear of the crowd, and of his having
reached the other side of the pond. And then it will be our turn to
depart."
Five minutes had not elapsed, before a long and shrill whistle was
heard through the din and noise of the square of the Buytenhof.
John gratefully raised his eyes to heaven.
"And now," said he, "let us off, Cornelius."
Chapter 3
The Pupil of John de Witt
Whilst the clamour of the crowd in the square of Buytenhof, which
grew more and more menacing against the two brothers, determined
John de Witt to hasten the departure of his brother Cornelius, a
deputation of burghers had gone to the Town-hall to demand the
withdrawal of Tilly's horse.
It was not far from the Buytenhof to Hoogstraet (High Street); and a
stranger, who since the beginning of this scene had watched all its
incidents with intense interest, was seen to wend his way with, or rather
in the wake of, the others towards the Town-hall, to hear as soon as
possible the current news of the hour.
This stranger was a very young man, of scarcely twenty-two or three,

with nothing about him that bespoke any great energy. He evidently
had his good reasons for not making himself known, as he hid his face
in a handkerchief of fine Frisian linen, with which he incessantly wiped
his brow or his burning lips.
With an eye keen as that of a bird of prey, -- with a long aquiline nose,
a finely cut mouth, which he generally kept open, or rather which was
gaping like the edges of a wound, -- this man would have presented to
Lavater, if Lavater had lived at that time, a subject for physiognomical
observations which at the first blush would not have been very
favourable to the person in question.
"What difference is there between the figure of the conqueror and that
of the pirate?" said the ancients. The difference only between the eagle
and the vulture, -- serenity or restlessness.
And indeed the sallow physiognomy, the thin and sickly body, and the
prowling ways of the stranger, were the very type of a suspecting
master, or an unquiet thief; and a police officer would certainly have
decided in favour of the latter supposition, on account