Page:The black tulip (IA 10892334.2209.emory.edu).pdf/190

 And with a trembling hand Cornelius wrote the address.

“To Mynheer Peter Van Herysen, Burgomaster, and President of the Horticultural Society of Haarlem.”

“And now, Rosa, go, go,” said Cornelius, “and let us implore the protection of God who has so kindly watched over us until now.”

  in fact the poor young people were in great need of protection.

They had never been so near the destruction of their hopes as at this moment, when they thought themselves certain of their fulfilment.

The reader cannot but have recognised in Jacob our old friend, or rather enemy, Isaac Boxtel, and has guessed, no doubt, that this worthy had followed, from the Buitenhof to Lœvestein, the object of his love and the object of his hatred—the black tulip and Cornelius Van Baerle.

What no one but a tulip-fancier, and an envious tulip-fancier could have discovered—the existence of the suckers and the endeavours of the prisoner, jealousy had enabled Boxtel if not to discover, at least to guess.

We have seen him, more successful under the name of Jacob than under that of Isaac, gain the friendship of Gryphus, which for several months he cultivated by means of the best Genièvre ever distilled from the Texel to Antwerp, and he lulled the suspicion of the