Chapter 9. The Family Cell
It was about midnight when poor Van Baerle was locked up in the prisonof the Buytenhof.
What Rosa foresaw had come to pass. On finding the cell of Corneliusde Witt empty, the wrath of the people ran very high, and had Gryphusfallen into the hands of those madmen he would certainly have had to paywith his life for the prisoner.
But this fury had vented itself most fully on the two brothers whenthey were overtaken by the murderers, thanks to the precaution whichWilliam--the man of precautions--had taken in having the gates of thecity closed.
A momentary lull had therefore set in whilst the prison was empty, andRosa availed herself of this favourable moment to come forth from herhiding place, which she also induced her father to leave.
The prison was therefore completely deserted. Why should people remainin the jail whilst murder was going on at the Tol-Hek?
Gryphus came forth trembling behind the courageous Rosa. They went toclose the great gate, at least as well as it would close, consideringthat it was half demolished. It was easy to see that a hurricane ofmighty fury had vented itself upon it.
About four o'clock a return of the noise was heard, but of nothreatening character to Gryphus and his daughter. The people were onlydragging in the two corpses, which they came back to gibbet at the usualplace of execution.
Rosa hid herself this time also, but only that she might not see theghastly spectacle.
At midnight, people again knocked at the gate of the jail, or ratherat the barricade which served in its stead: it was Cornelius van Baerlewhom they were bringing.
When the jailer received this new inmate, and saw from the warrant thename and station of his prisoner, he muttered with his turnkey smile,--
"Godson of Cornelius de Witt! Well, young man, we have the family cellhere, and we will give it to you."
And quite enchanted with his joke, the ferocious Orangeman took hiscresset and his keys to conduct Cornelius to the cell, which on thatvery morning Cornelius de Witt had left to go into exile, or what inrevolutionary times is meant instead by those sublime philosophers wholay it down as an axiom of high policy, "It is the dead only who do notreturn."
On the way which the despairing florist had to traverse to reach thatcell he heard nothing but the barking of a dog, and saw nothing but theface of a young girl.
The dog rushed forth from a niche in the wall, shaking his heavychain, and sniffing all round Cornelius in order so much the better torecognise him in case he should be ordered to pounce upon him.
The young girl, whilst the prisoner was mounting the staircase, appearedat the narrow door of her chamber, which opened on that very flight ofsteps; and, holding the lamp in her right hand, she at the same timelit up her pretty blooming face, surrounded by a profusion of richwavy golden locks, whilst with her left she held her white night-dressclosely over her breast, having been roused from her first slumber bythe unexpected arrival of Van Baerle.
It would have made a fine picture, worthy of Rembrandt, the gloomywinding stairs illuminated by the reddish glare of the cresset ofGryphus, with his scowling jailer's countenance at the top, themelancholy figure of Cornelius bending over the banister to look downupon the sweet face of Rosa, standing, as it were, in the bright frameof the door of her chamber, with embarrassed mien at being thus seen bya stranger.
And at the bottom, quite in the shade, where the details are absorbedin the obscurity, the mastiff, with his eyes glistening like carbuncles,and shaking his chain, on which the double light from the lamp of Rosaand the lantern of Gryphus threw a brilliant glitter.
The sublime master would, however, have been altogether unable torender the sorrow expressed in the face of Rosa, when she saw this pale,handsome young man slowly climbing the stairs, and thought of the fullimport of the words, which her father had just spoken, "You will havethe family cell."
This vision lasted but a moment,--much less time than we have taken todescribe it. Gryphus then proceeded on his way, Cornelius was forced tofollow him, and five minutes afterwards he entered his prison, of whichit is unnecessary to say more, as the reader is already acquainted withit.
Gryphus pointed with his finger to the bed on which the martyr hadsuffered so much, who on that day had rendered his soul to God. Then,taking up his cresset, he quitted the cell.
Thus left alone, Cornelius threw himself on his bed, but he slept not,he kept his eye fixed on the narrow window, barred with iron, whichlooked on the Buytenhof; and in this way saw from behind the trees thatfirst pale beam of light which morning sheds on the earth as a whitemantle.
Now and then during the night horses had galloped at a smart pace overthe Buytenhof, the heavy tramp of the patrols had resounded from thepavement, and the slow matches of the arquebuses, flaring in the eastwind, had thrown up at intervals a sudden glare as far as to the panesof his window.
But when the rising sun began to gild the coping stones at the gableends of the houses, Cornelius, eager to know whether there was anyliving creature about him, approached the window, and cast a sad lookround the circular yard before him.
At the end of the yard a dark mass, tinted with a dingy blue by themorning dawn, rose before him, its dark outlines standing out incontrast to the houses already illuminated by the pale light of earlymorning.
Cornelius recognised the gibbet.
On it were suspended two shapeless trunks, which indeed were no morethan bleeding skeletons.
The good people of the Hague had chopped off the flesh of its victims,but faithfully carried the remainder to the gibbet, to have a pretextfor a double inscription written on a huge placard, on which Cornelius;with the keen sight of a young man of twenty-eight, was able to read thefollowing lines, daubed by the coarse brush of a sign-painter:--
"Here are hanging the great rogue of the name of John de Witt, and thelittle rogue Cornelius de Witt, his brother, two enemies of the people,but great friends of the king of France."
Cornelius uttered a cry of horror, and in the agony of his franticterror knocked with his hands and feet at the door so violently andcontinuously, that Gryphus, with his huge bunch of keys in his hand, ranfuriously up.
The jailer opened the door, with terrible imprecations against theprisoner who disturbed him at an hour which Master Gryphus was notaccustomed to be aroused.
"Well, now, by my soul, he is mad, this new De Witt," he cried, "but allthose De Witts have the devil in them."
"Master, master," cried Cornelius, seizing the jailer by the arm anddragging him towards the window,--"master, what have I read down there?"
"Where down there?"
"On that placard."
And, trembling, pale, and gasping for breath, he pointed to the gibbetat the other side of the yard, with the cynical inscription surmountingit.
Gryphus broke out into a laugh.
"Eh! eh!" he answered, "so, you have read it. Well, my good sir, that'swhat people will get for corresponding with the enemies of his Highnessthe Prince of Orange."
"The brothers De Witt are murdered!" Cornelius muttered, with the coldsweat on his brow, and sank on his bed, his arms hanging by his side,and his eyes closed.
"The brothers De Witt have been judged by the people," said Gryphus;"you call that murdered, do you? well, I call it executed."
And seeing that the prisoner was not only quiet, but entirely prostrateand senseless, he rushed from the cell, violently slamming the door, andnoisily drawing the bolts.
Recovering his consciousness, Cornelius found himself alone, andrecognised the room where he was,--"the family cell," as Gryphus hadcalled it,--as the fatal passage leading to ignominious death.
And as he was a philosopher, and, more than that, as he was a Christian,he began to pray for the soul of his godfather, then for that of theGrand Pensionary, and at last submitted with resignation to all thesufferings which God might ordain for him.
Then turning again to the concerns of earth, and having satisfiedhimself that he was alone in his dung
eon, he drew from his breast thethree bulbs of the black tulip, and concealed them behind a block ofstone, on which the traditional water-jug of the prison was standing, inthe darkest corner of his cell.
Useless labour of so many years! such sweet hopes crushed; his discoverywas, after all, to lead to naught, just as his own career was to be cutshort. Here, in his prison, there was not a trace of vegetation, not anatom of soil, not a ray of sunshine.
At this thought Cornelius fell into a gloomy despair, from which he wasonly aroused by an extraordinary circumstance.
What was this circumstance?
We shall inform the reader in our next chapter.