Dumas, Alexandre – The Black Tulip

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