The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas (lightweight ebook reader txt) 📗

confessed a crime of which he was not guilty; and now, after three days of agony, he once more breathed freely, on being informed that the judges, from whom he had expected death, were only condemning him to exile.

Endowed with an iron frame and a stout heart, how would he have disappointed his enemies if they could only have seen, in the dark cell of the Buytenhof, his pale face lit up by the smile of the martyr, who forgets the dross of this earth after having obtained a glimpse of the bright glory of heaven.

The warden, indeed, had already recovered his full strength, much more owing to the force of his own strong will than to actual aid; and he was calculating how long the formalities of the law would still detain him in prison.

This was just at the very moment when the mingled shouts of the burgher guard and of the mob were raging against the two brothers, and threatening Captain Tilly, who served as a rampart to them. This noise, which roared outside of the walls of the prison, as the surf dashing against the rocks, now reached the ears of the prisoner.

But, threatening as it sounded, Cornelius appeared not to deem it worth his while to inquire after its cause; nor did he get up to look out of the narrow grated window, which gave access to the light and to the noise of the world without.

He was so absorbed in his never-ceasing pain that it had almost become a habit with him. He felt with such delight the bonds which connected his immortal being with his perishable frame gradually loosening, that it seemed to him as if his spirit, freed from the trammels of the body, were hovering above it, like the expiring flame which rises from the half-extinguished embers.

He also thought of his brother; and whilst the latter was thus vividly present to his mind the door opened, and John entered, hurrying to the bedside of the prisoner, who stretched out his broken limbs and his hands tied up in bandages towards that glorious brother, whom he now excelled, not in services rendered to the country, but in the hatred which the Dutch bore him.

John tenderly kissed his brother on the forehead, and put his sore hands gently back on the mattress.

“Cornelius, my poor brother, you are suffering great pain, are you not?”

“I am suffering no longer, since I see you, my brother.”

“Oh, my poor dear Cornelius! I feel most wretched to see you in such a state.”

“And, indeed, I have thought more of you than of myself; and whilst they were torturing me, I never thought of uttering a complaint, except once, to say, ‘Poor brother!’ But now that you are here, let us forget all. You are coming to take me away, are you not?”

“I am.”

“I am quite healed; help me to get up, and you shall see how I can walk.”

“You will not have to walk far, as I have my coach near the pond, behind Tilly’s dragoons.”

“Tilly’s dragoons! What are they near the pond for?”

“Well,” said the Grand Pensionary with a melancholy smile which was habitual to him, “the gentlemen at the Town-hall expect that the people at the Hague would like to see you depart, and there is some apprehension of a tumult.”

“Of a tumult?” replied Cornelius, fixing his eyes on his perplexed brother; “a tumult?”

“Yes, Cornelius.”

“Oh! that’s what I heard just now,” said the prisoner, as if speaking to himself. Then, turning to his brother, he continued,—

“Are there many persons down before the prison.”

“Yes, my brother, there are.”

“But then, to come here to me——”

“Well?”

“How is it that they have allowed you to pass?”

“You know well that we are not very popular, Cornelius,” said the Grand Pensionary, with gloomy bitterness. “I have made my way through all sorts of bystreets and alleys.”

“You hid yourself, John?”

“I wished to reach you without loss of time, and I did what people will do in politics, or on the sea when the wind is against them,—I tacked.”

At this moment the noise in the square below was heard to roar with increasing fury. Tilly was parleying with the burghers.

“Well, well,” said Cornelius, “you are a very skilful pilot, John; but I doubt whether you will as safely guide your brother out of the Buytenhof in the midst of this gale, and through the raging surf of popular hatred, as you did the fleet of Van Tromp past the shoals of the Scheldt to Antwerp.”

“With the help of God, Cornelius, we’ll at least try,” answered John; “but, first of all, a word with you.”

“Speak!”

The shouts began anew.

“Hark, hark!” continued Cornelius, “how angry those people are! Is it against you, or against me?”

“I should say it is against us both, Cornelius. I told you, my dear brother, that the Orange party, while assailing us with their absurd calumnies, have also made it a reproach against us that we have negotiated with France.”

“What blockheads they are!”

“But, indeed, they reproach us with it.”

“And yet, if these negotiations had been successful, they would have prevented the defeats of Rees, Orsay, Wesel, and Rheinberg; the Rhine would not have been crossed, and Holland might still consider herself invincible in the midst of her marshes and canals.”

“All this is quite true, my dear Cornelius, but still more certain it is, that if at this moment our correspondence with the Marquis de Louvois were discovered, skilful pilot as I am, I should not be able to save the frail barque which is to carry the brothers De Witt and their fortunes out of Holland. That correspondence, which might prove to honest people how dearly I love my country, and what sacrifices I have offered to make for its liberty and glory, would be ruin to us if it fell into the hands of the Orange party. I hope you have burned the letters before you left Dort to join me at the Hague.”

“My dear brother,” Cornelius answered, “your correspondence with M. de Louvois affords ample proof of your having been of late the greatest, most generous, and most able citizen of the Seven United Provinces. I rejoice in the glory of my country; and particularly do I rejoice in your glory, John. I have taken good care not to burn that correspondence.”

“Then we are lost, as far as this life is concerned,” quietly said the Grand Pensionary, approaching the window.