Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip

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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Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip

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