第 15 页

"Oh, I thank you, Rosa, dear Rosa."

Saying these words, Cornelius put his face so near thelittle window that Rosa withdrew hers.

"I have brought back to you your bulbs."

Cornelius's heart leaped with joy. He had not yet dared toask Rosa what she had done with the precious treasure whichhe had intrusted to her.

"Oh, you have preserved them, then?"

"Did you not give them to me as a thing which was dear toyou?"

"Yes, but as I have given them to you, it seems to me thatthey belong to you."

"They would have belonged to me after your death, but,fortunately, you are alive now. Oh how I blessed hisHighness in my heart! If God grants to him all the happinessthat I have wished him, certainly Prince William will be thehappiest man on earth. When I looked at the Bible of yourgodfather Cornelius, I was resolved to bring back to youyour bulbs, only I did not know how to accomplish it. I had,however, already formed the plan of going to theStadtholder, to ask from him for my father the appointmentof jailer of Loewestein, when your housekeeper brought meyour letter. Oh, how we wept together! But your letter onlyconfirmed me the more in my resolution. I then left forLeyden, and the rest you know."

"What, my dear Rosa, you thought, even before receiving myletter, of coming to meet me again?"

"If I thought of it," said Rosa, allowing her love to getthe better of her bashfulness, "I thought of nothing else."

And, saying these words, Rosa looked so exceedingly pretty,that for the second time Cornelius placed his forehead andlips against the wire grating; of course, we must presumewith the laudable desire to thank the young lady.

Rosa, however, drew back as before.

"In truth," she said, with that coquetry which somehow orother is in the heart of every young girl, "I have oftenbeen sorry that I am not able to read, but never so much soas when your housekeeper brought me your letter. I kept thepaper in my hands, which spoke to other people, and whichwas dumb to poor stupid me."

"So you have often regretted not being able to read," saidCornelius. "I should just like to know on what occasions."

"Troth," she said, laughing, "to read all the letters whichwere written to me."

"Oh, you received letters, Rosa?"

"By hundreds."

"But who wrote to you?"

"Who! why, in the first place, all the students who passedover the Buytenhof, all the officers who went to parade, allthe clerks, and even the merchants who saw me at my littlewindow."

"And what did you do with all these notes, my dear Rosa?"

"Formerly," she answered, "I got some friend to read them tome, which was capital fun, but since a certain time -- well,what use is it to attend to all this nonsense? -- since acertain time I have burnt them."

"Since a certain time!" exclaimed Cornelius, with a lookbeaming with love and joy.

Rosa cast down her eyes, blushing. In her sweet confusion,she did not observe the lips of Cornelius, which, alas! onlymet the cold wire-grating. Yet, in spite of this obstacle,they communicated to the lips of the young girl the glowingbreath of the most tender kiss.

At this sudden outburst of tenderness, Rosa grew very pale,-- perhaps paler than she had been on the day of theexecution. She uttered a plaintive sob, closed her fineeyes, and fled, trying in vain to still the beating of herheart.

And thus Cornelius was again alone.

Rosa had fled so precipitately, that she completely forgotto return to Cornelius the three bulbs of the Black Tulip.

Chapter 16

Master and Pupil

The worthy Master Gryphus, as the reader may have seen, wasfar from sharing the kindly feeling of his daughter for thegodson of Cornelius de Witt.

There being only five prisoners at Loewestein, the post ofturnkey was not a very onerous one, but rather a sort ofsinecure, given after a long period of service.

But the worthy jailer, in his zeal, had magnified with allthe power of his imagination the importance of his office.To him Cornelius had swelled to the gigantic proportions ofa criminal of the first order. He looked upon him,therefore, as the most dangerous of all his prisoners. Hewatched all his steps, and always spoke to him with an angrycountenance; punishing him for what he called his dreadfulrebellion against such a clement prince as the Stadtholder.

Three times a day he entered Van Baerle's cell, expecting tofind him trespassing; but Cornelius had ceased tocorrespond, since his correspondent was at hand. It is evenprobable that, if Cornelius had obtained his full liberty,with permission to go wherever he liked, the prison, withRosa and his bulbs, would have appeared to him preferable toany other habitation in the world without Rosa and hisbulbs.

Rosa, in fact, had promised to come and see him everyevening, and from the first evening she had kept her word.

On the following evening she went up as before, with thesame mysteriousness and the same precaution. Only she hadthis time resolved within herself not to approach too nearthe grating. In order, however, to engage Van Baerle in aconversation from the very first which would seriouslyoccupy his attention, she tendered to him through thegrating the three bulbs, which were still wrapped up in thesame paper.

But to the great astonishment of Rosa, Van Baerle pushedback her white hand with the tips of his fingers.

The young man had been considering about the matter.

"Listen to me," he said. "I think we should risk too much byembarking our whole fortune in one ship. Only think, my dearRosa, that the question is to carry out an enterprise whichuntil now has been considered impossible, namely, that ofmaking the great black tulip flower. Let us, therefore, takeevery possible precaution, so that in case of a failure wemay not have anything to reproach ourselves with. I will nowtell you the way I have traced out for us."

Rosa was all attention to what he would say, much more onaccount of the importance which the unfortunatetulip-fancier attached to it, than that she felt interestedin the matter herself.

"I will explain to you, Rosa," he said. "I dare say you havein this fortress a small garden, or some courtyard, or, ifnot that, at least some terrace."

"We have a very fine garden," said Rosa, "it runs along theedge of the Waal, and is full of fine old trees."

"Could you bring me some soil from the garden, that I mayjudge?"

"I will do so to-morrow."

"Take some from a sunny spot, and some from a shady, so thatI may judge of its properties in a dry and in a moiststate."

"Be assured I shall."

"After having chosen the soil, and, if it be necessary,modified it, we will divide our three bulbs; you will takeone and plant it, on the day that I will tell you, in thesoil chosen by me. It is sure to flower, if you tend itaccording to my directions."

"I will not lose sight of it for a minute."

"You will give me another, which I will try to grow here inmy cell, and which will help me to beguile those long wearyhours when I cannot see you. I confess to you I have verylittle hope for the latter one, and I look beforehand onthis unfortunate bulb as sacrificed to my selfishness.However, the sun sometimes visits me. I will, besides, tryto convert everything into an artificial help, even the heatand the ashes of my pipe, and lastly, we, or rather you,will keep in reserve the third sucker as our last resource,in case our first two experiments should prove a failure. Inthis manner, my dear Rosa, it is impossible that we shouldnot succeed in gaining the hundred thousand guilders foryour marriage portion; and how dearly shall we enjoy thatsupreme happiness of seeing our work brought to a successfulissue!"

"I know it all now," said Rosa. "I will bring you the soilto-morrow, and you will choose it for your bulb and formine. As to that in which yours is to grow, I shall haveseveral journeys to convey it to you, as I cannot bring muchat a time."

"There is no hurry for it, dear Rosa; our tulips need not beput into the ground for a month at least. So you see we haveplenty of time before us. Only I hope that, in planting yourbulb, you will strictly follow all my instructions."

"I promise you I will."

"And when you have once planted it, you will communicate tome all the circumstances which may interest our nursling;such as change of weather, footprints on the walks, orfootprints in the borders. You will listen at night whetherour garden is not resorted to by cats. A couple of thoseuntoward animals laid waste two of my borders at Dort."

"I will listen."

"On moonlight nights have you ever looked at your garden, mydear child?"

"The window of my sleeping-room overlooks it."

"Well, on moonlight nights you will observe whether any ratscome out from the holes in the wall. The rats are mostmischievous by their gnawing everything; and I have heardunfortunate tulip-growers complain most bitterly of Noah forhaving put a couple of rats in the ark."

"I will observe, and if there are cats or rats ---- "

"You will apprise me of it, -- that's right. And, moreover,"Van Baerle, having become mistrustful in his captivity,continued, "there is an animal much more to be feared thaneven the cat or the rat."

"What animal?"

"Man. You comprehend, my dear Rosa, a man may steal aguilder, and risk the prison for such a trifle, and,consequently, it is much more likely that some one mightsteal a hundred thousand guilders."

"No one ever enters the garden but myself."

"Thank you, thank you, my dear Rosa. All the joy of my lifehas still to come from you."

And as the lips of Van Baerle approached the grating withthe same ardor as the day before, and as, moreover, the hourfor retiring had struck, Rosa drew back her head, andstretched out her hand.

In this pretty little hand, of which the coquettish damselwas particularly proud, was the bulb.

Cornelius kissed most tenderly the tips of her fingers. Didhe do so because the hand kept one of the bulbs of the greatblack tulip, or because this hand was Rosa's? We shall leavethis point to the decision of wiser heads than ours.

Rosa withdrew with the other two suckers, pressing them toher heart.

Did she press them to her heart because they were the bulbsof the great black tulip, or because she had them fromCornelius?

This point, we believe, might be more readily decided thanthe other.

However that may have been, from that moment life becamesweet, and again full of interest to the prisoner.

Rosa, as we have seen, had returned to him one of thesuckers.

Every evening she brought to him, handful by handful, aquantity of soil from that part of the garden which he hadfound to be the best, and which, indeed, was excellent.

A large jug, which Cornelius had skilfully broken, didservice as a flower-pot. He half filled it, and mixed theearth of the garden with a small portion of dried river mud,a mixture which formed an excellent soil.

Then, at the beginning of April, he planted his first suckerin that jug.

Not a day passed on which Rosa did not come to have her chatwith Cornelius.

The tulips, concerning whose cultivation Rosa was taught allthe mysteries of the art, formed the principal topic of theconversation; but, interesting as the subject was, peoplecannot always talk about tulips.

They therefore began to chat also about other things, andthe tulip-fancier found out to his great astonishment what avast range of subjects a conversation may comprise.

Only Rosa had made it a habit to keep her pretty faceinvariably six inches distant from the grating, havingperhaps become distrustful of herself.

There was one thing especially which gave Cornelius almostas much anxiety as his bulbs -- a subject to which he alwaysreturned -- the dependence of Rosa on her father.

Indeed, Van Baerle's happiness depended on the whim of thisman. He might one day find Loewestein dull, or the air ofthe place unhealthy, or the gin bad, and leave the fortress,and take his daughter with him, when Cornelius and Rosawould again be separated.

"Of what use would the carrier pigeons then be?" saidCornelius to Rosa, "as you, my dear girl, would not be ableto read what I should write to you, nor to write to me yourthoughts in return."

"Well," answered Rosa, who in her heart was as much afraidof a separation as Cornelius himself, "we have one hourevery evening, let us make good use of it."

"I don't think we make such a bad use of it as it is."

"Let us employ it even better," said Rosa, smiling. "Teachme to read and write. I shall make the best of your lessons,believe me; and, in this way, we shall never be separatedany more, except by our own will."

"Oh, then, we have an eternity before us," said Cornelius.

Rosa smiled, and quietly shrugged her shoulders.

"Will you remain for ever in prison?" she said, "and afterhaving granted you your life, will not his Highness alsogrant you your liberty? And will you not then recover yourfortune, and be a rich man, and then, when you are drivingin your own coach, riding your own horse, will you stilllook at poor Rosa, the daughter of a jailer, scarcely betterthan a hangman?"

Cornelius tried to contradict her, and certainly he wouldhave done so with all his heart, and with all the sincerityof a soul full of love.

She, however, smilingly interrupted him, saying, "How isyour tulip going on?"

To speak to Cornelius of his tulip was an expedient resortedto by her to make him forget everything, even Rosa herself.

"Very well, indeed," he said, "the coat is growing black,the sprouting has commenced, the veins of the bulb areswelling, in eight days hence, and perhaps sooner, we maydistinguish the first buds of the leaves protruding. Andyours Rosa?"

"Oh, I have done things on a large scale, and according toyour directions."

"Now, let me hear, Rosa, what you have done," saidCornelius, with as tender an anxiety as he had lately shownto herself.

"Well," she said, smiling, for in her own heart she couldnot help studying this double love of the prisoner forherself and for the black tulip, "I have done things on alarge scale; I have prepared a bed as you described it tome, on a clear spot, far from trees and walls, in a soilslightly mixed with sand, rather moist than dry without afragment of stone or pebble."