The Black Tulip, Alexandre Dumas [portable ebook reader .txt] 📗

for Orange!’ all well and good!” replied Tilly, “although I certainly am more partial to happy faces than to gloomy ones. ‘Death to the traitors!’ as much of it as you like, as long as you show your wishes only by cries. But, as to putting them to death in good earnest, I am here to prevent that, and I shall prevent it.”

Then, turning round to his men, he gave the word of command⁠—

“Soldiers, ready!”

The troopers obeyed orders with a precision which immediately caused the burgher guard and the people to fall back, in a degree of confusion which excited the smile of the cavalry officer.

“Holloa!” he exclaimed, with that bantering tone which is peculiar to men of his profession; “be easy, gentlemen, my soldiers will not fire a shot; but, on the other hand, you will not advance by one step towards the prison.”

“And do you know, sir, that we have muskets?” roared the commandant of the burghers.

“I must know it, by Jove, you have made them glitter enough before my eyes; but I beg you to observe also that we on our side have pistols, that the pistol carries admirably to a distance of fifty yards, and that you are only twenty-five from us.”

“Death to the traitors!” cried the exasperated burghers.

“Go along with you,” growled the officer, “you always cry the same thing over again. It is very tiresome.”

With this, he took his post at the head of his troops, whilst the tumult grew fiercer and fiercer about the Buytenhof.

And yet the fuming crowd did not know that, at that very moment when they were tracking the scent of one of their victims, the other, as if hurrying to meet his fate, passed, at a distance of not more than a hundred yards, behind the groups of people and the dragoons, to betake himself to the Buytenhof.

John de Witt, indeed, had alighted from his coach with his servant, and quietly walked across the courtyard of the prison.

Mentioning his name to the turnkey, who however knew him, he said⁠—

“Good morning, Gryphus; I am coming to take away my brother, who, as you know, is condemned to exile, and to carry him out of the town.”

Whereupon the jailer, a sort of bear, trained to lock and unlock the gates of the prison, had greeted him and admitted him into the building, the doors of which were immediately closed again.

Ten yards farther on, John de Witt met a lovely young girl, of about seventeen or eighteen, dressed in the national costume of the Frisian women, who, with pretty demureness, dropped a curtesy to him. Chucking her under the chin, he said to her⁠—

“Good morning, my good and fair Rosa; how is my brother?”

“Oh, Mynheer John!” the young girl replied, “I am not afraid of the harm which has been done to him. That’s all over now.”

“But what is it you are afraid of?”

“I am afraid of the harm which they are going to do to him.”

“Oh, yes,” said De Witt, “you mean to speak of the people down below, don’t you?”

“Do you hear them?”

“They are indeed in a state of great excitement; but when they see us perhaps they will grow calmer, as we have never done them anything but good.”

“That’s unfortunately no reason, except for the contrary,” muttered the girl, as, on an imperative sign from her father, she withdrew.

“Indeed, child, what you say is only too true.”

Then, in pursuing his way, he said to himself⁠—

“Here is a damsel who very likely does not know how to read, who consequently has never read anything, and yet with one word she has just told the whole history of the world.”

And with the same calm mien, but more melancholy than he had been on entering the prison, the Grand Pensionary proceeded towards the cell of his brother.

II The Two Brothers

As the fair Rosa, with foreboding doubt, had foretold, so it happened. Whilst John de Witt was climbing the narrow winding stairs which led to the prison of his brother Cornelius, the burghers did their best to have the troop of Tilly, which was in their way, removed.

Seeing this disposition, King Mob, who fully appreciated the laudable intentions of his own beloved militia, shouted most lustily⁠—

“Hurrah for the burghers!”

As to Count Tilly, who was as prudent as he was firm, he began to parley with the burghers, under the protection of the cocked pistols of his dragoons, explaining to the valiant townsmen, that his order from the States commanded him to guard the prison and its approaches with three companies.

“Wherefore such an order? Why guard the prison?” cried the Orangists.

“Stop,” replied the Count, “there you at once ask me more than I can tell you. I was told, ‘Guard the prison,’ and I guard it. You, gentlemen, who are almost military men yourselves, you are aware that an order must never be gainsaid.”

“But this order has been given to you that the traitors may be enabled to leave the town.”

“Very possibly, as the traitors are condemned to exile,” replied Tilly.

“But who has given this order?”

“The States, to be sure!”

“The States are traitors.”

“I don’t know anything about that!”

“And you are a traitor yourself!”

“I?”

“Yes, you.”

“Well, as to that, let us understand each other gentlemen. Whom should I betray? The States? Why, I cannot betray them, whilst, being in their pay, I faithfully obey their orders.”

As the Count was so indisputably in the right that it was impossible to argue against him, the mob answered only by redoubled clamour and horrible threats, to which the Count opposed the most perfect urbanity.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “uncock your muskets, one of them may go off by accident; and if the shot chanced to wound one of my men, we should knock over a couple of hundreds of yours, for which we should, indeed, be very sorry, but you even more so; especially as such a thing is neither contemplated by you nor by myself.”

“If you did that,” cried the burghers, “we should have