Chapter 8. An Invasion
The incident just related was, as the reader has guessed before this,the diabolical work of Mynheer Isaac Boxtel.
It will be remembered that, with the help of his telescope, not even theleast detail of the private meeting between Cornelius de Witt and VanBaerle had escaped him. He had, indeed, heard nothing, but he had seeneverything, and had rightly concluded that the papers intrusted by theWarden to the Doctor must have been of great importance, as he saw VanBaerle so carefully secreting the parcel in the drawer where he used tokeep his most precious bulbs.
The upshot of all this was that when Boxtel, who watched the course ofpolitical events much more attentively than his neighbour Cornelius wasused to do, heard the news of the brothers De Witt being arrested on acharge of high treason against the States, he thought within his heartthat very likely he needed only to say one word, and the godson would bearrested as well as the godfather.
Yet, full of happiness as was Boxtel's heart at the chance, he at firstshrank with horror from the idea of informing against a man whom thisinformation might lead to the scaffold.
But there is this terrible thing in evil thoughts, that evil minds soongrow familiar with them.
Besides this, Mynheer Isaac Boxtel encouraged himself with the followingsophism:--
"Cornelius de Witt is a bad citizen, as he is charged with high treason,and arrested.
"I, on the contrary, am a good citizen, as I am not charged withanything in the world, as I am as free as the air of heaven."
"If, therefore, Cornelius de Witt is a bad citizen,--of which therecan be no doubt, as he is charged with high treason, and arrested,--hisaccomplice, Cornelius van Baerle, is no less a bad citizen than himself.
"And, as I am a good citizen, and as it is the duty of every goodcitizen to inform against the bad ones, it is my duty to inform againstCornelius van Baerle."
Specious as this mode of reasoning might sound, it would not perhapshave taken so complete a hold of Boxtel, nor would he perhaps haveyielded to the mere desire of vengeance which was gnawing at his heart,had not the demon of envy been joined with that of cupidity.
Boxtel was quite aware of the progress which Van Baerle had made towardsproducing the grand black tulip.
Dr. Cornelius, notwithstanding all his modesty, had not been able tohide from his most intimate friends that he was all but certain to win,in the year of grace 1673, the prize of a hundred thousand guildersoffered by the Horticultural Society of Haarlem.
It was just this certainty of Cornelius van Baerle that caused the feverwhich raged in the heart of Isaac Boxtel.
If Cornelius should be arrested there would necessarily be a great upsetin his house, and during the night after his arrest no one would thinkof keeping watch over the tulips in his garden.
Now in that night Boxtel would climb over the wall and, as he knew theposition of the bulb which was to produce the grand black tulip, hewould filch it; and instead of flowering for Cornelius, it would flowerfor him, Isaac; he also, instead of Van Baerle, would have the prizeof a hundred thousand guilders, not to speak of the sublime honour ofcalling the new flower Tulipa nigra Boxtellensis,--a result which wouldsatisfy not only his vengeance, but also his cupidity and his ambition.
Awake, he thought of nothing but the grand black tulip; asleep, hedreamed of it.
At last, on the 19th of August, about two o'clock in the afternoon,the temptation grew so strong, that Mynheer Isaac was no longer able toresist it.
Accordingly, he wrote an anonymous information, the minute exactness ofwhich made up for its want of authenticity, and posted his letter.
Never did a venomous paper, slipped into the jaws of the bronze lions atVenice, produce a more prompt and terrible effect.
On the same evening the letter reached the principal magistrate, whowithout a moment's delay convoked his colleagues early for the nextmorning. On the following morning, therefore, they assembled, anddecided on Van Baerle's arrest, placing the order for its execution inthe hands of Master van Spennen, who, as we have seen, performed hisduty like a true Hollander, and who arrested the Doctor at the very hourwhen the Orange party at the Hague were roasting the bleeding shreds offlesh torn from the corpses of Cornelius and John de Witt.
But, whether from a feeling of shame or from craven weakness, IsaacBoxtel did not venture that day to point his telescope either at thegarden, or at the laboratory, or at the dry-room.
He knew too well what was about to happen in the house of the poordoctor to feel any desire to look into it. He did not even get up whenhis only servant--who envied the lot of the servants of Cornelius justas bitterly as Boxtel did that of their master--entered his bedroom. Hesaid to the man,--
"I shall not get up to-day, I am ill."
About nine o'clock he heard a great noise in the street which made himtremble, at this moment he was paler than a real invalid, and shook moreviolently than a man in the height of fever.
His servant entered the room; Boxtel hid himself under the counterpane.
"Oh, sir!" cried the servant, not without some inkling that, whilstdeploring the mishap which had befallen Van Baerle, he was announcingagreeable news to his master,--"oh, sir! you do not know, then, what ishappening at this moment?"
"How can I know it?" answered Boxtel, with an almost unintelligiblevoice.
"Well, Mynheer Boxtel, at this moment your neighbour Cornelius vanBaerle is arrested for high treason."
"Nonsense!" Boxtel muttered, with a faltering voice; "the thing isimpossible."
"Faith, sir, at any rate that's what people say; and, besides, I haveseen Judge van Spennen with the archers entering the house."
"Well, if you have seen it with your own eyes, that's a different casealtogether."
"At all events," said the servant, "I shall go and inquire once more. Beyou quiet, sir, I shall let you know all about it."
Boxtel contented himself with signifying his approval of the zeal of hisservant by dumb show.
The man went out, and returned in half an hour.
"Oh, sir, all that I told you is indeed quite true."
"How so?"
"Mynheer van Baerle is arrested, and has been put into a carriage, andthey are driving him to the Hague."
"To the Hague!"
"Yes, to the Hague, and if what people say is true, it won't do him muchgood."
"And what do they say?" Boxtel asked.
"Faith, sir, they say--but it is not quite sure--that by this hour theburghers must be murdering Mynheer Cornelius and Mynheer John de Witt."
"Oh," muttered, or rather growled Boxtel, closing his eyes from thedreadful picture which presented itself to his imagination.
"Why, to be sure," said the servant to himself, whilst leaving the room,"Mynheer Isaac Boxtel must be very sick not to have jumped from his bedon hearing such good news."
And, in reality, Isaac Boxtel was very sick, like a man who has murderedanother.
But he had murdered his man with a double object; the first wasattained, the second was still to be attained.
Night closed in. It was the night which Boxtel had looked forward to.
As soon as it was dark he got up.
He then climbed into his sycamore.
He had calculated correctly; no one thought of keeping watch over thegarden; the house and the servants were all in the utmost confusion.
He heard the clock strike--ten, eleven, twelve.
At midnight, with a beating heart, trembling hands, and a lividcountenance, he descended from the tree, took a ladder, leaned itagainst the wall, mounted it to the last step but one, and listened.
All was perfectly quiet, not a sound broke the silence of the night; onesolitary light, that of the housekeeper, was burning in the house.
This silence and this darkness emboldened Boxtel; he got astride thewall, stopped for an instant, and, after having ascertained that therewas nothing to fear, he put his ladder from his own garden into that ofCornelius, and descended.
/> Then, knowing to an inch where the bulbs which were to produce the blacktulip were planted, he ran towards the spot, following, however, thegravelled walks in order not to be betrayed by his footprints, and,on arriving at the precise spot, he proceeded, with the eagerness of atiger, to plunge his hand into the soft ground.
He found nothing, and thought he was mistaken.
In the meanwhile, the cold sweat stood on his brow.
He felt about close by it,--nothing.
He felt about on the right, and on the left,--nothing.
He felt about in front and at the back,--nothing.
He was nearly mad, when at last he satisfied himself that on that verymorning the earth had been disturbed.
In fact, whilst Boxtel was lying in bed, Cornelius had gone down to hisgarden, had taken up the mother bulb, and, as we have seen, divided itinto three.
Boxtel could not bring himself to leave the place. He dug up with hishands more than ten square feet of ground.
At last no doubt remained of his misfortune. Mad with rage, he returnedto his ladder, mounted the wall, drew up the ladder, flung it into hisown garden, and jumped after it.
All at once, a last ray of hope presented itself to his mind: theseedling bulbs might be in the dry-room; it was therefore only requisiteto make his entry there as he had done into the garden.
There he would find them, and, moreover, it was not at all difficult, asthe sashes of the dry-room might be raised like those of a greenhouse.Cornelius had opened them on that morning, and no one had thought ofclosing them again.
Everything, therefore, depended upon whether he could procure a ladderof sufficient length,--one of twenty-five feet instead of ten.
Boxtel had noticed in the street where he lived a house which was beingrepaired, and against which a very tall ladder was placed.
This ladder would do admirably, unless the workmen had taken it away.
He ran to the house: the ladder was there. Boxtel took it, carried itwith great exertion to his garden, and with even greater difficultyraised it against the wall of Van Baerle's house, where it just reachedto the window.
Boxtel put a lighted dark lantern into his pocket, mounted the ladder,and slipped into the dry-room.
On reaching this sanctuary of the florist he stopped, supporting himselfagainst the table; his legs failed him, his heart beat as if it wouldchoke him. Here it was even worse than in the garden; there Boxtel wasonly a trespasser, here he was a thief.
However, he took courage again: he had not gone so far to turn back withempty hands.
But in vain did he search the whole room, open and shut all the drawers,even that privileged one where the parcel which had been so fatal toCornelius had been deposited; he found ticketed, as in a botanicalgarden, the "Jane," the "John de Witt," the hazel-nut, and theroasted-coffee coloured tulip; but of the black tulip, or rather theseedling bulbs within which it was still sleeping, not a trace wasfound.
And yet, on looking over the register of seeds and bulbs, which VanBaerle kept in duplicate, if possible even with greater exactitude andcare than the first commercial houses of Amsterdam their ledgers, Boxtelread these lines:--
"To-day, 20th of August, 1672, I have taken up the mother bulb of thegrand black tulip, which I have divided into three perfect suckers."
"Oh these bulbs, these bulbs!" howled Boxtel, turning over everything inthe dry-room, "where could he have concealed them?"
Then, suddenly striking his forehead in his frenzy, he called out, "Ohwretch that I am! Oh thrice fool Boxtel! Would any one be separated fromhis bulbs? Would any one leave them at Dort, when one goes to the Hague?Could one live far from one's bulbs, when they enclose the grand blacktulip? He had time to get hold of them, the scoundrel, he has them abouthim, he has taken them to the Hague!"
It was like a flash of lightning which showed to Boxtel the abyss of auselessly committed crime.
Boxtel sank quite paralyzed on that very table, and on that very spotwhere, some hours before, the unfortunate Van Baerle had so leisurely,and with such intense delight, contemplated his darling bulbs.
"Well, then, after all," said the envious Boxtel,--raising his lividface from his hands in which it had been buried--"if he has them, he cankeep them only as long as he lives, and----"
The rest of this detestable thought was expressed by a hideous smile.
"The bulbs are at the Hague," he said, "therefore, I can no longer liveat Dort: away, then, for them, to the Hague! to the Hague!"
And Boxtel, without taking any notice of the treasures about him, soentirely were his thoughts absorbed by another inestimable treasure, lethimself out by the window, glided down the ladder, carried it back tothe place whence he had taken it, and, like a beast of prey, returnedgrowling to his house.