The Black Tulip, Alexandre Dumas [most recommended books .TXT] 📗

Rather than expose them to the tender mercies of his bullying jailer, he drove away for ever those gentle messengers to whom he owed the happiness of having seen Rosa again.

This visit of the jailer, his brutal threats, and the gloomy prospect of the harshness with which, as he had before experienced, Gryphus watched his prisoners,—all this was unable to extinguish in Cornelius the sweet thoughts, and especially the sweet hope, which the presence of Rosa had reawakened in his heart.

He waited eagerly to hear the clock of the tower of Loewestein strike nine.

The last chime was still vibrating through the air, when Cornelius heard on the staircase the light step and the rustle of the flowing dress of the fair Frisian maid, and soon after a light appeared at the little grated window in the door, on which the prisoner fixed his earnest gaze.

The shutter opened on the outside.

“Here I am,” said Rosa, out of breath from running up the stairs, “here I am.”

“Oh, my good Rosa.”

“You are then glad to see me?”

“Can you ask? But how did you contrive to get here? tell me.”

“Now listen to me. My father falls asleep every evening almost immediately after his supper; I then make him lie down, a little stupefied with his gin. Don’t say anything about it, because, thanks to this nap, I shall be able to come every evening and chat for an hour with you.”

“Oh, I thank you, Rosa, dear Rosa.”

Saying these words, Cornelius put his face so near the little window that Rosa withdrew hers.

“I have brought back to you your bulbs.”

Cornelius’s heart leaped with joy. He had not yet dared to ask Rosa what she had done with the precious treasure which he had intrusted to her.

“Oh, you have preserved them, then?”

“Did you not give them to me as a thing which was dear to you?”

“Yes, but as I have given them to you, it seems to me that they belong to you.”

“They would have belonged to me after your death, but, fortunately, you are alive now. Oh how I blessed his Highness in my heart! If God grants to him all the happiness that I have wished him, certainly Prince William will be the happiest man on earth. When I looked at the Bible of your godfather Cornelius, I was resolved to bring back to you your bulbs, only I did not know how to accomplish it. I had, however, already formed the plan of going to the Stadtholder, to ask from him for my father the appointment of jailer of Loewestein, when your housekeeper brought me your letter. Oh, how we wept together! But your letter only confirmed me the more in my resolution. I then left for Leyden, and the rest you know.”

“What, my dear Rosa, you thought, even before receiving my letter, of coming to meet me again?”

“If I thought of it,” said Rosa, allowing her love to get the better of her bashfulness, “I thought of nothing else.”

And, saying these words, Rosa looked so exceedingly pretty, that for the second time Cornelius placed his forehead and lips against the wire grating; of course, we must presume with the laudable desire to thank the young lady.

Rosa, however, drew back as before.

“In truth,” she said, with that coquetry which somehow or other is in the heart of every young girl, “I have often been sorry that I am not able to read, but never so much so as when your housekeeper brought me your letter. I kept the paper in my hands, which spoke to other people, and which was dumb to poor stupid me.”

“So you have often regretted not being able to read,” said Cornelius. “I should just like to know on what occasions.”

“Troth,” she said, laughing, “to read all the letters which were written to me.”

“Oh, you received letters, Rosa?”

“By hundreds.”

“But who wrote to you?”

“Who! why, in the first place, all the students who passed over the Buytenhof, all the officers who went to parade, all the clerks, and even the merchants who saw me at my little window.”

“And what did you do with all these notes, my dear Rosa?”

“Formerly,” she answered, “I got some friend to read them to me, which was capital fun, but since a certain time—well, what use is it to attend to all this nonsense?—since a certain time I have burnt them.”

“Since a certain time!” exclaimed Cornelius, with a look beaming with love and joy.

Rosa cast down her eyes, blushing. In her sweet confusion, she did not observe the lips of Cornelius, which, alas! only met the cold wire-grating. Yet, in spite of this obstacle, they communicated to the lips of the young girl the glowing breath of the most tender kiss.

At this sudden outburst of tenderness, Rosa grew very pale,—perhaps paler than she had been on the day of the execution. She uttered a plaintive sob, closed her fine eyes, and fled, trying in vain to still the beating of her heart.

And thus Cornelius was again alone.

Rosa had fled so precipitately, that she completely forgot to return to Cornelius the three bulbs of the Black Tulip.