The Black Tulip, Alexandre Dumas [most recommended books .TXT] 📗
- Author: Alexandre Dumas
Book online «The Black Tulip, Alexandre Dumas [most recommended books .TXT] 📗». Author Alexandre Dumas
“Oh, Rosa, if you don’t open the door to me,” Cornelius cried in his rage, “I shall force these bars, and kill everything I find in the prison.”
“Be merciful, be merciful, my friend!”
“I tell you, Rosa, that I shall demolish this prison, stone for stone!” and the unfortunate man, whose strength was increased tenfold by his rage, began to shake the door with a great noise, little heeding that the thunder of his voice was re-echoing through the spiral staircase.
Rosa, in her fright, made vain attempts to check this furious outbreak.
“I tell you that I shall kill that infamous Gryphus?” roared Cornelius. “I tell you I shall shed his blood as he did that of my black tulip.”
The wretched prisoner began really to rave.
“Well, then, yes,” said Rosa, all in a tremble. “Yes, yes, only be quiet. Yes, yes, I will take his keys, I will open the door for you! Yes, only be quiet, my own dear Cornelius.”
She did not finish her speech, as a growl by her side interrupted her.
“My father!” cried Rosa.
“Gryphus!” roared Van Baerle. “Oh, you villain!”
Old Gryphus, in the midst of all the noise, had ascended the 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! 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. 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 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
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