myself,” the Prince gruffly replied.
The officer started off with a speed which was much less
owing to his sense of military obedience than to his
pleasure at being relieved from the necessity of witnessing
the shocking spectacle of the murder of the other brother.
He had scarcely left the room, when John — who, with an
almost superhuman effort, had reached the stone steps of a
house nearly opposite that where his former pupil concealed
himself — began to stagger under the blows which were
inflicted 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 his
clenched fist.
Another showed to him his bloody hands; for this fellow had
ripped open Cornelius and disembowelled him, and was now
hastening to the spot in order not to lose the opportunity
of serving the Grand Pensionary in the same manner, whilst
they were dragging the dead body of Cornelius to the gibbet.
John uttered a cry of agony and grief, and put one of his
hands before his eyes.
“Oh, you close your eyes, do you?” said one of the soldiers
of 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 the
stream of blood which blinded him, what had become of
Cornelius; “my brother, my brother!”
“Go and run after him!” bellowed another murderer, putting
his 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 by
the barrel with both hands, struck John de Witt down with
the 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 young
man opposite closed the shutter.
There remained little more to see; a third murderer fired a
pistol with the muzzle to his face; and this time the shot
took effect, blowing out his brains. John de Witt fell to
rise no more.
On this, every one of the miscreants, emboldened by his
fall, wanted to fire his gun at him, or strike him with
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Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip
blows of the sledge-hammer, or stab him with a knife or
swords, every one wanted to draw a drop of blood from the
fallen hero, and tear off a shred from his garments.
And after having mangled, and torn, and completely stripped
the two brothers, the mob dragged their naked and bloody
bodies to an extemporised gibbet, where amateur executioners
hung them up by the feet.
Then came the most dastardly scoundrels of all, who not
having dared to strike the living flesh, cut the dead in
pieces, and then went about the town selling small slices of
the bodies of John and Cornelius at ten sous a piece.
We cannot take upon ourselves to say whether, through the
almost imperceptible chink of the shutter, the young man
witnessed the conclusion of this shocking scene; but at the
very moment when they were hanging the two martyrs on the
gibbet he passed through the terrible mob, which was too
much absorbed in the task, so grateful to its taste, to take
any notice of him, and thus he reached unobserved the
Tol-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 key
only 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 to
retrace their steps.”
“Gate! gate!” cried a voice which seemed to be that of a man
in a hurry.
The Prince, turning round, observed Captain Van Deken.
“Is that you, Captain?” he said. “You are not yet out of the
Hague? This is executing my orders very slowly.”