Part 10 (1/2)

She then put the cherished treasure next her beating heart

The noise on the staircase which Cornelius and Rosa had heard was caused by the Recorder, as co for the prisoner He was followed by the executioner, by the soldiers ere to forers-on of the prison

Cornelius, without showing any weakness, but likeithout any bravado, received them rather as friends than as persecutors, and quietly subed to lance into the yard through the narrow iron-barredof his cell, he perceived the scaffold, and, at twenty paces distant froibbet, froed remains of the two brothers De Witt had been taken down

When the uards, Cornelius sought with his eyes the angelic look of Rosa, but he saw, behind the swords and halberds, only a for outstretched near a wooden bench, and a deathlike face half covered with long golden locks

But Rosa, whilst falling down senseless, still obeying her friend, had pressed her hand on her velvet bodice and, forgetting everything in the world besides, instinctively grasped the precious deposit which Cornelius had intrusted to her care

Leaving the cell, the young ers of Rosa the yellowish leaf from that Bible on which Cornelius de Witt had with such difficulty and pain written these few lines, which, if Van Baerle had read the of a man and a tulip

Chapter 12

The Execution

Cornelius had not three hundred paces to walk outside the prison to reach the foot of the scaffold At the botto quietly looked at hi; Cornelius even fancied he saw in the eyes of the monster a certain expression as it were of co perhaps knew the condemned prisoners, and only bit those who left as free men

The shorter the way from the door of the prison to the foot of the scaffold, the more fully, of course, it was croith curious people

These were the same who, not satisfied with the blood which they had shed three days before, were now craving for a new victim

And scarcely had Cornelius h the whole street, spreading all over the yard, and re-echoing from the streets which led to the scaffold, and which were likewise croith spectators

The scaffold indeed looked like an islet at the confluence of several rivers

In the roans, and yells, Cornelius, very likely in order not to hear thehts

And what did he think of in his last melancholy journey?

Neither of his enees, nor of his executioners

He thought of the beautiful tulips which he would see froal, or elsewhere, when he would be able to look with pity on this earth, where John and Cornelius de Witt had been ht too much of politics, and where Cornelius van Baerle was about to be ht too much of tulips

”It is only one stroke of the axe,” said the philosopher to hiin to be realised”

Only there was still a chance, just as it had happened before to M de Chalais, to M de Thou, and other slovenly executed people, that the headsht inflict more than one stroke, that is to say, more than one martyrdo all this, Van Baerlebeen the friend of that illustrious John, and Godson of that noble Cornelius de Witt, who to witness his own doom, had torn to pieces and burnt three days before

He knelt down, said his prayers, and observed, not without a feeling of sincere joy, that, laying his head on the block, and keeping his eyes open, he would be able to his last ratedof the Buytenhof

At length the fatal moment arrived, and Cornelius placed his chin on the cold damp block But at this moment his eyes closed involuntarily, to receive more resolutely the terrible avalanche which was about to fall on his head, and to engulf his life

A glea passed across the scaffold: it was the executioner raising his sword

Van Baerle bade farewell to the great black tulip, certain of awaking in another world full of light and glorious tints

Three times he felt, with a shudder, the cold current of air from the knife near his neck, but what a surprise! he felt neither pain nor shock

He saw no change in the colour of the sky, or of the world around hi hi a little

He looked around hie parche seal of red wax

And the same sun, yellow and pale, as it behooves a Dutch sun to be, was shi+ning in the skies; and the saratedlooked down upon hi, but co at hian to be sensible to as going on around hie, very likely afraid that Van Baerle's blood would turn the scale of judgainst hiood character, and the apparent proofs of his innocence

His Highness, accordingly, had granted him his life

Cornelius at first hoped that the pardon would be complete, and that he would be restored to his full liberty and to his flower borders at Dort

But Cornelius was ne, rote about the same time, ”there was a postscript to the letter;” and the most important part of the letter was contained in the postscript

In this postscript, Williae, Stadtholder of Holland, condemned Cornelius van Baerle to iuilty to suffer death, but he was too much so to be set at liberty

Cornelius heard this clause, but, the first feeling of vexation and disappointment over, he said to himself, -- ”Never ood in this perpetual imprisonment; Rosa will be there, and also my three bulbs of the black tulip are there”

But Cornelius forgot that the Seven Provinces had seven prisons, one for each, and that the board of the prisoner is anywhere else less expensive than at the Hague, which is a capital

His Highness, who, as it seeue, sent hio his perpetual imprisonment at the fortress of Loewestein, very near Dort, but, alas! also very far froraphers tell us, is situated at the point of the islet which is formed by the confluence of the Waal and the Meuse, opposite Gorcum

Van Baerle was sufficiently versed in the history of his country to know that the celebrated Grotius was confined in that castle after the death of Barneveldt; and that the States, in their generosity to the illustrious publicist, jurist, historian, poet, and divine, had granted to him for his daily maintenance the sum of twenty-four stivers

”I,” said Van Baerle to hiive me twelve stivers, and I shall live miserably; but never mind, at all events I shall live”

Then suddenly a terrible thought struck him