who in great emergencies are supplied by the misfortune
itself with the energy for combating or with the resources
for remedying it.
She went to her room, and cast a last glance about her to
see whether she had not been mistaken, and whether the tulip
was not stowed away in some corner where it had escaped her
notice. But she sought in vain, the tulip was still missing;
the tulip was indeed stolen.
Rosa made up a little parcel of things indispensable for a
journey; took her three hundred guilders, — that is to say,
all her fortune, — fetched the third bulb from among her
lace, where she had laid it up, and carefully hid it in her
bosom; after which she locked her door twice to disguise her
flight as long as possible, and, leaving the prison by the
same door which an hour before had let out Boxtel, she went
to a stable-keeper to hire a carriage.
The man had only a two-wheel chaise, and this was the
vehicle which Boxtel had hired since last evening, and in
which he was now driving along the road to Delft; for the
road from Loewestein to Haarlem, owing to the many canals,
rivers, and rivulets intersecting the country, is
exceedingly circuitous.
Not being able to procure a vehicle, Rosa was obliged to
take a horse, with which the stable-keeper readily intrusted
her, knowing her to be the daughter of the jailer of the
fortress.
Rosa hoped to overtake her messenger, a kind-hearted and
honest lad, whom she would take with her, and who might at
the same time serve her as a guide and a protector.
And in fact she had not proceeded more than a league before
she saw him hastening along one of the side paths of a very
pretty road by the river. Setting her horse off at a canter,
she soon came up with him.
The honest lad was not aware of the important character of
his message; nevertheless, he used as much speed as if he
had known it; and in less than an hour he had already gone a
league and a half.
Page 137
Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip
Rosa took from him the note, which had now become useless,
and explained to him what she wanted him to do for her. The
boatman placed himself entirely at her disposal, promising
to keep pace with the horse if Rosa would allow him to take
hold of either the croup or the bridle of her horse. The two
travellers had been on their way for five hours, and made
more than eight leagues, and yet Gryphus had not the least
suspicion of his daughter having left the fortress.
The jailer, who was of a very spiteful and cruel
disposition, chuckled within himself at the idea of having
struck such terror into his daughter’s heart.
But whilst he was congratulating himself on having such a
nice story to tell to his boon companion, Jacob, that worthy
was on his road to Delft; and, thanks to the swiftness of
the horse, had already the start of Rosa and her companion
by four leagues.
And whilst the affectionate father was rejoicing at the
thought of his daughter weeping in her room, Rosa was making
the best of her way towards Haarlem.
Thus the prisoner alone was where Gryphus thought him to be.
Rosa was so little with her father since she took care of
the tulip, that at his dinner hour, that is to say, at
twelve o’clock, he was reminded for the first time by his
appetite that his daughter was fretting rather too long.
He sent one of the under-turnkeys to call her; and, when the
man came back to tell him that he had called and sought her
in vain, he resolved to go and call her himself.
He first went to her room, but, loud as he knocked, Rosa
answered not.
The locksmith of the fortress was sent for; he opened the
door, but Gryphus no more found Rosa than she had found the
tulip.
At that very moment she entered Rotterdam.
Gryphus therefore had just as little chance of finding her