Page:The black tulip (IA 10892334.2209.emory.edu).pdf/120

 The piece which the mastiff had torn from his hose did not discourage Boxtel. He came back to the charge, but this time Gryphus was in his bed, feverish, and with a broken arm. He, therefore, was not able to admit the petitioner, who then addressed himself to Rosa, offering to buy for her a head-dress of pure gold, if she would but get the bulbs for him. On this, the generous girl, although not yet knowing the value of the object of the robbery, which was to be so well remunerated, had directed the tempter to the executioner, as the heir of the prisoner.

In the meanwhile the sentence had been pronounced. Thus Isaac had no more time to bribe any one, He therefore clung to the idea which Rosa had suggested: he went to the executioner.

Isaac had not the least doubt but that Cornelius would die with his bulbs on his heart.

But there were two things which Boxtel did not calculate upon.

Rosa, that is to say—love.

William of Orange, that is to say—clemency?

But for Rosa and William, the calculations of the envious neighbour would have been correct.

But for William, Cornelius would have died.

But for Rosa, Cornelius would have died with his bulbs on his heart.

Mynheer Boxtel went to the headsman, to whom he gave himself out as a great friend of the condemned man, and from whom he bought all the clothes of the dead man that was to be, for one hundred guilders, rather an exorbitant sum, as he engaged to leave all the trinkets of gold and silver to the executioner.

But what was the sum of a hundred guilders to a man who was all but sure to buy with it the prize of the Haarlem Society?