第 5 页

"By whom?"

"By a pale and thin young man, of about twenty-two."

"And wherefore did you give it up to him?"

"Because he showed me an order, signed and sealed."

"By whom?"

"By the gentlemen of the Town-hall."

"Well, then," said Cornelius calmly, "our doom seems to befixed."

"Do you know whether the same precaution has been taken atthe other gates?"

"I do not."

"Now then," said John to the coachman, "God commands man todo all that is in his power to preserve his life; go, anddrive to another gate."

And whilst the servant was turning round the vehicle theGrand Pensionary said to the gatekeeper, --

"Take our thanks for your good intentions; the will mustcount for the deed; you had the will to save us, and that,in the eyes of the Lord, is as if you had succeeded in doingso."

"Alas!" said the gatekeeper, "do you see down there?"

"Drive at a gallop through that group," John called out tothe coachman, "and take the street on the left; it is ouronly chance."

The group which John alluded to had, for its nucleus, thosethree men whom we left looking after the carriage, and who,in the meanwhile, had been joined by seven or eight others.

These new-comers evidently meant mischief with regard to thecarriage.

When they saw the horses galloping down upon them, theyplaced themselves across the street, brandishing cudgels intheir hands, and calling out, --

"Stop! stop!"

The coachman, on his side, lashed his horses into increasedspeed, until the coach and the men encountered.

The brothers De Witt, enclosed within the body of thecarriage, were not able to see anything; but they felt asevere shock, occasioned by the rearing of the horses. Thewhole vehicle for a moment shook and stopped; butimmediately after, passing over something round and elastic,which seemed to be the body of a prostrate man set off againamidst a volley of the fiercest oaths.

"Alas!" said Cornelius, "I am afraid we have hurt some one."

"Gallop! gallop!" called John.

But, notwithstanding this order, the coachman suddenly cameto a stop.

"Now, then, what is the matter again?" asked John.

"Look there!" said the coachman.

John looked. The whole mass of the populace from theBuytenhof appeared at the extremity of the street alongwhich the carriage was to proceed, and its stream movedroaring and rapid, as if lashed on by a hurricane.

"Stop and get off," said John to the coachman; "it isuseless to go any farther; we are lost!"

"Here they are! here they are!" five hundred voices werecrying at the same time.

"Yes, here they are, the traitors, the murderers, theassassins!" answered the men who were running after thecarriage to the people who were coming to meet it. Theformer carried in their arms the bruised body of one oftheir companions, who, trying to seize the reins of thehorses, had been trodden down by them.

This was the object over which the two brothers had felttheir carriage pass.

The coachman stopped, but, however strongly his master urgedhim, he refused to get off and save himself.

In an instant the carriage was hemmed in between those whofollowed and those who met it. It rose above the mass ofmoving heads like a floating island. But in another instantit came to a dead stop. A blacksmith had with his hammerstruck down one of the horses, which fell in the traces.

At this moment, the shutter of a window opened, anddisclosed the sallow face and the dark eyes of the youngman, who with intense interest watched the scene which waspreparing. Behind him appeared the head of the officer,almost as pale as himself.

"Good heavens, Monseigneur, what is going on there?"whispered the officer.

"Something very terrible, to a certainty," replied theother.

"Don't you see, Monseigneur, they are dragging the GrandPensionary from the carriage, they strike him, they tear himto pieces!"

"Indeed, these people must certainly be prompted by a mostviolent indignation," said the young marl, with the sameimpassible tone which he had preserved all along.

"And here is Cornelius, whom they now likewise drag out ofthe carriage, -- Cornelius, who is already quite broken andmangled by the torture. Only look, look!"

"Indeed, it is Cornelius, and no mistake."

The officer uttered a feeble cry, and turned his head away;the brother of the Grand Pensionary, before having set footon the ground, whilst still on the bottom step of thecarriage, was struck down with an iron bar which broke hisskull. He rose once more, but immediately fell again.

Some fellows then seized him by the feet, and dragged himinto the crowd, into the middle of which one might havefollowed his bloody track, and he was soon closed in amongthe savage yells of malignant exultation.

The young man -- a thing which would have been thoughtimpossible -- grew even paler than before, and his eyes werefor a moment veiled behind the lids.

The officer saw this sign of compassion, and, wishing toavail himself of this softened tone of his feelings,continued, --

"Come, come, Monseigneur, for here they are also going tomurder the Grand Pensionary."

But the young man had already opened his eyes again.

"To be sure," he said. "These people are really implacable.It does no one good to offend them."

"Monseigneur," said the officer, "may not one save this poorman, who has been your Highness's instructor? If there beany means, name it, and if I should perish in the attempt---- "

William of Orange -- for he it was -- knit his brows in avery forbidding manner, restrained the glance of gloomymalice which glistened in his half-closed eye, and answered,--

"Captain Van Deken, I request you to go and look after mytroops, that they may be armed for any emergency."

"But am I to leave your Highness here, alone, in thepresence of all these murderers?"

"Go, and don't you trouble yourself about me more than I domyself," the Prince gruffly replied.

The officer started off with a speed which was much lessowing to his sense of military obedience than to hispleasure at being relieved from the necessity of witnessingthe shocking spectacle of the murder of the other brother.

He had scarcely left the room, when John -- who, with analmost superhuman effort, had reached the stone steps of ahouse nearly opposite that where his former pupil concealedhimself -- began to stagger under the blows which wereinflicted on him from all sides, calling out, --

"My brother! where is my brother?"

One of the ruffians knocked off his hat with a blow of hisclenched fist.

Another showed to him his bloody hands; for this fellow hadripped open Cornelius and disembowelled him, and was nowhastening to the spot in order not to lose the opportunityof serving the Grand Pensionary in the same manner, whilstthey were dragging the dead body of Cornelius to the gibbet.

John uttered a cry of agony and grief, and put one of hishands before his eyes.

"Oh, you close your eyes, do you?" said one of the soldiersof the burgher guard; "well, I shall open them for you."

And saying this he stabbed him with his pike in the face,and the blood spurted forth.

"My brother!" cried John de Witt, trying to see through thestream of blood which blinded him, what had become ofCornelius; "my brother, my brother!"

"Go and run after him!" bellowed another murderer, puttinghis musket to his temples and pulling the trigger.

But the gun did not go off.

The fellow then turned his musket round, and, taking it bythe barrel with both hands, struck John de Witt down withthe butt-end. John staggered and fell down at his feet, but,raising himself with a last effort, he once more called out,--

"My brother!" with a voice so full of anguish that the youngman opposite closed the shutter.

There remained little more to see; a third murderer fired apistol with the muzzle to his face; and this time the shottook effect, blowing out his brains. John de Witt fell torise no more.

On this, every one of the miscreants, emboldened by hisfall, wanted to fire his gun at him, or strike him withblows of the sledge-hammer, or stab him with a knife orswords, every one wanted to draw a drop of blood from thefallen hero, and tear off a shred from his garments.

And after having mangled, and torn, and completely strippedthe two brothers, the mob dragged their naked and bloodybodies to an extemporised gibbet, where amateur executionershung them up by the feet.

Then came the most dastardly scoundrels of all, who nothaving dared to strike the living flesh, cut the dead inpieces, and then went about the town selling small slices ofthe bodies of John and Cornelius at ten sous a piece.

We cannot take upon ourselves to say whether, through thealmost imperceptible chink of the shutter, the young manwitnessed the conclusion of this shocking scene; but at thevery moment when they were hanging the two martyrs on thegibbet he passed through the terrible mob, which was toomuch absorbed in the task, so grateful to its taste, to takeany notice of him, and thus he reached unobserved theTol-Hek, which was still closed.

"Ah! sir," said the gatekeeper, "do you bring me the key?"

"Yes, my man, here it is."

"It is most unfortunate that you did not bring me that keyonly one quarter of an hour sooner," said the gatekeeper,with a sigh.

"And why that?" asked the other.

"Because I might have opened the gate to Mynheers de Witt;whereas, finding the gate locked, they were obliged toretrace their steps."

"Gate! gate!" cried a voice which seemed to be that of a manin a hurry.

The Prince, turning round, observed Captain Van Deken.

"Is that you, Captain?" he said. "You are not yet out of theHague? This is executing my orders very slowly."

"Monseigneur," replied the Captain, "this is the third gateat which I have presented myself; the other two wereclosed."

"Well, this good man will open this one for you; do it, myfriend."

The last words were addressed to the gatekeeper, who stoodquite thunderstruck on hearing Captain Van Deken addressingby the title of Monseigneur this pale young man, to whom hehimself had spoken in such a familiar way.

As it were to make up for his fault, he hastened to open thegate, which swung creaking on its hinges.

"Will Monseigneur avail himself of my horse?" asked theCaptain.

"I thank you, Captain, I shall use my own steed, which iswaiting for me close at hand."

And taking from his pocket a golden whistle, such as wasgenerally used at that time for summoning the servants, hesounded it with a shrill and prolonged call, on which anequerry on horseback speedily made his appearance, leadinganother horse by the bridle.

William, without touching the stirrup, vaulted into thesaddle of the led horse, and, setting his spurs into itsflanks, started off for the Leyden road. Having reached it,he turned round and beckoned to the Captain who was farbehind, to ride by his side.

"Do you know," he then said, without stopping, "that thoserascals have killed John de Witt as well as his brother?"

"Alas! Monseigneur," the Captain answered sadly, "I shouldlike it much better if these two difficulties were still inyour Highness's way of becoming de facto Stadtholder ofHolland."

"Certainly, it would have been better," said William, "ifwhat did happen had not happened. But it cannot be helpednow, and we have had nothing to do with it. Let us push on,Captain, that we may arrive at Alphen before the messagewhich the States-General are sure to send to me to thecamp."

The Captain bowed, allowed the Prince to ride ahead and, forthe remainder of the journey, kept at the same respectfuldistance as he had done before his Highness called him tohis side.

"How I should wish," William of Orange malignantly mutteredto himself, with a dark frown and setting the spurs to hishorse, "to see the figure which Louis will cut when he isapprised of the manner in which his dear friends De Witthave been served! Oh thou Sun! thou Sun! as truly as I amcalled William the Silent, thou Sun, thou hadst best look tothy rays!"

And the young Prince, the relentless rival of the GreatKing, sped away upon his fiery steed, -- this futureStadtholder who had been but the day before very uncertainlyestablished in his new power, but for whom the burghers ofthe Hague had built a staircase with the bodies of John andCornelius, two princes as noble as he in the eyes of God and man.

Chapter 5

The Tulip-fancier and his Neighbour

Whilst the burghers of the Hague were tearing in pieces thebodies of John and Cornelius de Witt, and whilst William ofOrange, after having made sure that his two antagonists werereally dead, was galloping over the Leyden road, followed byCaptain van Deken, whom he found a little too compassionateto honour him any longer with his confidence, Craeke, thefaithful servant, mounted on a good horse, and littlesuspecting what terrible events had taken place since hisdeparture, proceeded along the high road lined with trees,until he was clear of the town and the neighbouringvillages.

Being once safe, he left his horse at a livery stable inorder not to arouse suspicion, and tranquilly continued hisjourney on the canal-boats, which conveyed him by easystages to Dort, pursuing their way under skilful guidance bythe shortest possible routes through the windings of theriver, which held in its watery embrace so many enchantinglittle islands, edged with willows and rushes, and aboundingin luxurious vegetation, whereon flocks of fat sheep browsedin peaceful sleepiness. Craeke from afar off recognisedDort, the smiling city, at the foot of a hill dotted withwindmills. He saw the fine red brick houses, mortared inwhite lines, standing on the edge of the water, and theirbalconies, open towards the river, decked out with silktapestry embroidered with gold flowers, the wonderfulmanufacture of India and China; and near these brilliantstuffs, large lines set to catch the voracious eels, whichare attracted towards the houses by the garbage thrown everyday from the kitchens into the river.

Craeke, standing on the deck of the boat, saw, across themoving sails of the windmills, on the slope of the hill, thered and pink house which was the goal of his errand. Theoutlines of its roof were merging in the yellow foliage of acurtain of poplar trees, the whole habitation having forbackground a dark grove of gigantic elms. The mansion wassituated in such a way that the sun, falling on it as into afunnel, dried up, warmed, and fertilised the mist which theverdant screen could not prevent the river wind fromcarrying there every morning and evening.