Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip

staircase without being heard.

He rudely seized his daughter by the wrist.

“So you will take my keys?” he said, in a voice choked with

rage. “Ah! this dastardly fellow, this monster, this

gallows-bird of a conspirator, is your own dear Cornelius,

is he? Ah! Missy has communications with prisoners of state.

Ah! won’t I teach you — won’t I?”

Rosa clasped her hands in despair.

“Ah!” Gryphus continued, passing from the madness of anger

to the cool irony of a man who has got the better of his

enemy, — “Ah, you innocent tulip-fancier, you gentle

scholar; you will kill me, and drink my blood! Very well!

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very well! And you have my daughter for an accomplice. Am I,

forsooth, in a den of thieves, — in a cave of brigands?

Yes, but the Governor shall know all to-morrow, and his

Highness the Stadtholder the day after. We know the law, —

we shall give a second edition of the Buytenhof, Master

Scholar, and a good one this time. Yes, yes, just gnaw your

paws like a bear in his cage, and you, my fine little lady,

devour your dear Cornelius with your eyes. I tell you, my

lambkins, you shall not much longer have the felicity of

conspiring together. Away with you, unnatural daughter! And

as to you, Master Scholar, we shall see each other again.

Just be quiet, — we shall.”

Rosa, beyond herself with terror and despair, kissed her

hands to her friend; then, suddenly struck with a bright

thought, she rushed toward the staircase, saying, —

“All is not yet lost, Cornelius. Rely on me, my Cornelius.”

Her father followed her, growling.

As to poor Cornelius, he gradually loosened his hold of the

bars, which his fingers still grasped convulsively. His head

was heavy, his eyes almost started from their sockets, and

he fell heavily on the floor of his cell, muttering, —

“Stolen! it has been stolen from me!”

During this time Boxtel had left the fortress by the door

which Rosa herself had opened. He carried the black tulip

wrapped up in a cloak, and, throwing himself into a coach,

which was waiting for him at Gorcum, he drove off, without,

as may well be imagined, having informed his friend Gryphus

of his sudden departure.

And now, as we have seen him enter his coach, we shall with

the consent of the reader, follow him to the end of his

journey.

He proceeded but slowly, as the black tulip could not bear

travelling post-haste.

But Boxtel, fearing that he might not arrive early enough,

procured at Delft a box, lined all round with fresh moss, in

which he packed the tulip. The flower was so lightly pressed

upon all sides, with a supply of air from above, that the

coach could now travel full speed without any possibility of

injury to the tulip.

He arrived next morning at Haarlem, fatigued but triumphant;

and, to do away with every trace of the theft, he

transplanted the tulip, and, breaking the original

flower-pot, threw the pieces into the canal. After which he

wrote the President of the Horticultural Society a letter,

in which he announced to him that he had just arrived at

Haarlem with a perfectly black tulip; and, with his flower

all safe, took up his quarters at a good hotel in the town,

and there he waited.

Chapter 25

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The President van Systens

Rosa, on leaving Cornelius, had fixed on her plan, which was

no other than to restore to Cornelius the stolen tulip, or

never to see him again.

She had seen the despair of the prisoner, and she knew that

it was derived from a double source, and that it was

incurable.

On the one hand, separation became inevitable, — Gryphus

having at the same time surprised the secret of their love

and of their secret meetings.

On the other hand, all the hopes on the fulfilment of which

Cornelius van Baerle had rested his ambition for the last

seven years were now crushed.

Rosa was one of those women who are dejected by trifles, but