form lying outstretched near a wooden bench, and a deathlike
face half covered with long golden locks.
But Rosa, whilst falling down senseless, still obeying her
friend, had pressed her hand on her velvet bodice and,
forgetting everything in the world besides, instinctively
grasped the precious deposit which Cornelius had intrusted
to her care.
Leaving the cell, the young man could still see in the
convulsively clinched fingers of Rosa the yellowish leaf
from that Bible on which Cornelius de Witt had with such
difficulty and pain written these few lines, which, if Van
Baerle had read them, would undoubtedly have been the saving
of a man and a tulip.
Chapter 12
The Execution
Cornelius had not three hundred paces to walk outside the
prison to reach the foot of the scaffold. At the bottom of
the staircase, the dog quietly looked at him whilst he was
passing; Cornelius even fancied he saw in the eyes of the
monster a certain expression as it were of compassion.
The dog perhaps knew the condemned prisoners, and only bit
those who left as free men.
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The shorter the way from the door of the prison to the foot
of the scaffold, the more fully, of course, it was crowded
with curious people.
These were the same who, not satisfied with the blood which
they had shed three days before, were now craving for a new
victim.
And scarcely had Cornelius made his appearance than a fierce
groan ran through the whole street, spreading all over the
yard, and re-echoing from the streets which led to the
scaffold, and which were likewise crowded with spectators.
The scaffold indeed looked like an islet at the confluence
of several rivers.
In the midst of these threats, groans, and yells, Cornelius,
very likely in order not to hear them, had buried himself in
his own thoughts.
And what did he think of in his last melancholy journey?
Neither of his enemies, nor of his judges, nor of his
executioners.
He thought of the beautiful tulips which he would see from
heaven above, at Ceylon, or Bengal, or elsewhere, when he
would be able to look with pity on this earth, where John
and Cornelius de Witt had been murdered for having thought
too much of politics, and where Cornelius van Baerle was
about to be murdered for having thought too much of tulips.
“It is only one stroke of the axe,” said the philosopher to
himself, “and my beautiful dream will begin to be realised.”
Only there was still a chance, just as it had happened
before to M. de Chalais, to M. de Thou, and other slovenly
executed people, that the headsman might inflict more than
one stroke, that is to say, more than one martyrdom, on the
poor tulip-fancier.
Yet, notwithstanding all this, Van Baerle mounted the
scaffold not the less resolutely, proud of having been the
friend of that illustrious John, and godson of that noble
Cornelius de Witt, whom the ruffians, who were now crowding
to witness his own doom, had torn to pieces and burnt three
days before.
He knelt down, said his prayers, and observed, not without a
feeling of sincere joy, that, laying his head on the block,
and keeping his eyes open, he would be able to his last
moment to see the grated window of the Buytenhof.
At length the fatal moment arrived, and Cornelius placed his
chin on the cold damp block. But at this moment his eyes
closed involuntarily, to receive more resolutely the
terrible avalanche which was about to fall on his head, and
to engulf his life.
A gleam like that of lightning passed across the scaffold:
it was the executioner raising his sword.
Van Baerle bade farewell to the great black tulip, certain
of awaking in another world full of light and glorious
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tints.
Three times he felt, with a shudder, the cold current of air
from the knife near his neck, but what a surprise! he felt
neither pain nor shock.
He saw no change in the colour of the sky, or of the world
around him.