Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip

actual aid; and he was calculating how long the formalities

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Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip

of the law would still detain him in prison.

This was just at the very moment when the mingled shouts of

the burgher guard and of the mob were raging against the two

brothers, and threatening Captain Tilly, who served as a

rampart to them. This noise, which roared outside of the

walls of the prison, as the surf dashing against the rocks,

now reached the ears of the prisoner.

But, threatening as it sounded, Cornelius appeared not to

deem it worth his while to inquire after its cause; nor did

he get up to look out of the narrow grated window, which

gave access to the light and to the noise of the world

without.

He was so absorbed in his never-ceasing pain that it had

almost become a habit with him. He felt with such delight

the bonds which connected his immortal being with his

perishable frame gradually loosening, that it seemed to him

as if his spirit, freed from the trammels of the body, were

hovering above it, like the expiring flame which rises from

the half-extinguished embers.

He also thought of his brother; and whilst the latter was

thus vividly present to his mind the door opened, and John

entered, hurrying to the bedside of the prisoner, who

stretched out his broken limbs and his hands tied up in

bandages towards that glorious brother, whom he now

excelled, not in services rendered to the country, but in

the hatred which the Dutch bore him.

John tenderly kissed his brother on the forehead, and put

his sore hands gently back on the mattress.

“Cornelius, my poor brother, you are suffering great pain,

are you not?”

“I am suffering no longer, since I see you, my brother.”

“Oh, my poor dear Cornelius! I feel most wretched to see you

in such a state.”

“And, indeed, I have thought more of you than of myself; and

whilst they were torturing me, I never thought of uttering a

complaint, except once, to say, ‘Poor brother!’ But now that

you are here, let us forget all. You are coming to take me

away, are you not?”

“I am.”

“I am quite healed; help me to get up, and you shall see how

I can walk.”

“You will not have to walk far, as I have my coach near the

pond, behind Tilly’s dragoons.”

“Tilly’s dragoons! What are they near the pond for?”

“Well,” said the Grand Pensionary with a melancholy smile

which was habitual to him, “the gentlemen at the Town-hall

expect that the people at the Hague would like to see you

depart, and there is some apprehension of a tumult.”

“Of a tumult?” replied Cornelius, fixing his eyes on his

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Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip

perplexed brother; “a tumult?”

“Yes, Cornelius.”

“Oh! that’s what I heard just now,” said the prisoner, as if

speaking to himself. Then, turning to his brother, he

continued, —

“Are there many persons down before the prison.”

“Yes, my brother, there are.”

“But then, to come here to me —- ”

“Well?”

“How is it that they have allowed you to pass?”

“You know well that we are not very popular, Cornelius,”

said the Grand Pensionary, with gloomy bitterness. “I have

made my way through all sorts of bystreets and alleys.”

“You hid yourself, John?”

“I wished to reach you without loss of time, and I did what

people will do in politics, or on the sea when the wind is

against them, — I tacked.”

At this moment the noise in the square below was heard to

roar with increasing fury. Tilly was parleying with the

burghers.

“Well, well,” said Cornelius, “you are a very skilful pilot,

John; but I doubt whether you will as safely guide your

brother out of the Buytenhof in the midst of this gale, and

through the raging surf of popular hatred, as you did the

fleet of Van Tromp past the shoals of the Scheldt to

Antwerp.”

“With the help of God, Cornelius, we’ll at least try,”

answered John; “but, first of all, a word with you.”