This daring miscreant detailed, with all the embellishments
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Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip
and flourishes suggested by his base mind and his ruffianly
imagination, the attempts which he pretended Cornelius de
Witt had made to corrupt him; the sums of money which were
promised, and all the diabolical stratagems planned
beforehand to smooth for him, Tyckelaer, all the
difficulties in the path of murder.
And every phase of his speech, eagerly listened to by the
populace, called forth enthusiastic cheers for the Prince of
Orange, and groans and imprecations of blind fury against
the brothers De Witt.
The mob even began to vent its rage by inveighing against
the iniquitous judges, who had allowed such a detestable
criminal as the villain Cornelius to get off so cheaply.
Some of the agitators whispered, “He will be off, he will
escape from us!”
Others replied, “A vessel is waiting for him at Schevening,
a French craft. Tyckelaer has seen her.”
“Honest Tyckelaer! Hurrah for Tyckelaer!” the mob cried in
chorus.
“And let us not forget,” a voice exclaimed from the crowd,
“that at the same time with Cornelius his brother John, who
is as rascally a traitor as himself, will likewise make his
escape.”
“And the two rogues will in France make merry with our
money, with the money for our vessels, our arsenals, and our
dockyards, which they have sold to Louis XIV.”
“Well, then, don’t let us allow them to depart!” advised one
of the patriots who had gained the start of the others.
“Forward to the prison, to the prison!” echoed the crowd.
Amid these cries, the citizens ran along faster and faster,
cocking their muskets, brandishing their hatchets, and
looking death and defiance in all directions.
No violence, however, had as yet been committed; and the
file of horsemen who were guarding the approaches of the
Buytenhof remained cool, unmoved, silent, much more
threatening in their impassibility than all this crowd of
burghers, with their cries, their agitation, and their
threats. The men on their horses, indeed, stood like so many
statues, under the eye of their chief, Count Tilly, the
captain of the mounted troops of the Hague, who had his
sword drawn, but held it with its point downwards, in a line
with the straps of his stirrup.
This troop, the only defence of the prison, overawed by its
firm attitude not only the disorderly riotous mass of the
populace, but also the detachment of the burgher guard,
which, being placed opposite the Buytenhof to support the
soldiers in keeping order, gave to the rioters the example
of seditious cries, shouting, —
“Hurrah for Orange! Down with the traitors!”
The presence of Tilly and his horsemen, indeed, exercised a
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salutary check on these civic warriors; but by degrees they
waxed more and more angry by their own shouts, and as they
were not able to understand how any one could have courage
without showing it by cries, they attributed the silence of
the dragoons to pusillanimity, and advanced one step towards
the prison, with all the turbulent mob following in their
wake.
In this moment, Count Tilly rode forth towards them
single-handed, merely lifting his sword and contracting his
brow whilst he addressed them: —
“Well, gentlemen of the burgher guard, what are you
advancing for, and what do you wish?”
The burghers shook their muskets, repeating their cry, —
“Hurrah for Orange! Death to the traitors!”
“‘Hurrah for Orange!’ all well and good!” replied Tilly,
“although I certainly am more partial to happy faces than to
gloomy ones. ‘Death to the traitors!’ as much of it as you
like, as long as you show your wishes only by cries. But, as
to putting them to death in good earnest, I am here to
prevent that, and I shall prevent it.”
Then, turning round to his men, he gave the word of command,
—
“Soldiers, ready!”
The troopers obeyed orders with a precision which
immediately caused the burgher guard and the people to fall
back, in a degree of confusion which excited the smile of
the cavalry officer.
“Holloa!” he exclaimed, with that bantering tone which is