to the love and care of Rosa.
For it may well be imagined that the tender secret of the
two lovers had not escaped the prying curiosity of Boxtel.
The question, therefore, was how to wrest the second bulb
from the care of Rosa.
Certainly this was no easy task.
Rosa watched over her tulip as a mother over her child, or a
dove over her eggs.
Rosa never left her room during the day, and, more than
that, strange to say, she never left it in the evening.
For seven days Boxtel in vain watched Rosa; she was always
at her post.
This happened during those seven days which made Cornelius
so unhappy, depriving him at the same time of all news of
Rosa and of his tulip.
Would the coolness between Rosa and Cornelius last for ever?
This would have made the theft much more difficult than
Mynheer Isaac had at first expected.
We say the theft, for Isaac had simply made up his mind to
steal the tulip; and as it grew in the most profound
secrecy, and as, moreover, his word, being that of a
renowned tulip-grower, would any day be taken against that
of an unknown girl without any knowledge of horticulture, or
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against that of a prisoner convicted of high treason, he
confidently hoped that, having once got possession of the
bulb, he would be certain to obtain the prize; and then the
tulip, instead of being called Tulipa nigra Barlaensis,
would go down to posterity under the name of Tulipa nigra
Boxtellensis or Boxtellea.
Mynheer Isaac had not yet quite decided which of these two
names he would give to the tulip, but, as both meant the
same thing, this was, after all, not the important point.
The point was to steal the tulip. But in order that Boxtel
might steal the tulip, it was necessary that Rosa should
leave her room.
Great therefore was his joy when he saw the usual evening
meetings of the lovers resumed.
He first of all took advantage of Rosa’s absence to make
himself fully acquainted with all the peculiarities of the
door of her chamber. The lock was a double one and in good
order, but Rosa always took the key with her.
Boxtel at first entertained an idea of stealing the key, but
it soon occurred to him, not only that it would be
exceedingly difficult to abstract it from her pocket, but
also that, when she perceived her loss, she would not leave
her room until the lock was changed, and then Boxtel’s first
theft would be useless.
He thought it, therefore, better to employ a different
expedient. He collected as many keys as he could, and tried
all of them during one of those delightful hours which Rosa
and Cornelius passed together at the grating of the cell.
Two of the keys entered the lock, and one of them turned
round once, but not the second time.
There was, therefore, only a little to be done to this key.
Boxtel covered it with a slight coat of wax, and when he
thus renewed the experiment, the obstacle which prevented
the key from being turned a second time left its impression
on the wax.
It cost Boxtel two days more to bring his key to perfection,
with the aid of a small file.
Rosa’s door thus opened without noise and without
difficulty, and Boxtel found himself in her room alone with
the tulip.
The first guilty act of Boxtel had been to climb over a wall
in order to dig up the tulip; the second, to introduce
himself into the dry-room of Cornelius, through an open
window; and the third, to enter Rosa’s room by means of a
false key.
Thus envy urged Boxtel on with rapid steps in the career of
crime.
Boxtel, as we have said, was alone with the tulip.
A common thief would have taken the pot under his arm, and
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carried it off.
But Boxtel was not a common thief, and he reflected.
It was not yet certain, although very probable, that the
tulip would flower black; if, therefore, he stole it now, he