Page:The black tulip (IA 10892334.2209.emory.edu).pdf/48

 “Indeed, it is Cornelius, and no mistake.”

The officer uttered a feeble cry, and turned his head away; the brother of the Grand Pensionary, before having set foot on the ground, whilst still on the bottom step of the carriage, was struck down with an iron bar which broke his skull. He rose once more, but immediately fell again.

Some fellows then seized him by the feet, and dragged him into the crowd, into the middle of which one might have followed his bloody track, and he was soon closed in among the savage yells of malignant exultation.

The young man—a thing which would have been thought impossible—grew even paler than before, and his eyes were for a moment veiled behind the lids.

The officer saw this sign of compassion, and, wishing to avail himself of this softened tone of his feelings, continued:—

“Come, come, Monseigneur, for here they are also going to murder the Grand Pensionary.”

But the young man had already opened his eyes again.

“To be sure,” he said. “These people are really implacable. It does no one good to offend them.”

“Monseigneur,” said the officer, ”may not one save this poor man, who has been your Highness’s instructor? If there be any means, name it, and if I should perish in the attempt,”

William of Orange—for he it was—knit his brows in a very forbidding manner, restrained the glance of gloomy malice which glistened in his half-closed eye, and answered,”—

“Captain Van Deken, I request you to go and look after my troops, that they may be armed for any emergency.”