Page:The black tulip (IA 10892334.2209.emory.edu).pdf/86

 ing watch over the garden; the house and the servants were all in the utmost confusion.

He heard the clock strike ten, eleven, twelve.

At midnight, with a beating heart, trembling hands, and a livid countenance, he descended from the tree, took a ladder, leaned it against the wall, mounted it. to the last step but one, and listened.

All was perfectly quiet, not a sound broke the silence of the night; one solitary light, that of the housekeeper, was burning in the house.

This silence and this darkness emboldened Boxtel; he got astride on the wall, stopped for an instant, and, after having ascertained that there was nothing to fear, he put his ladder from his own garden into that of Cornelius, and descended.

After this, knowing to an inch where the bulbs which were to produce the black tulip were planted, he ran towards the spot, following, however, the crisp gravelled walks in order not to be betrayed by his foot-prints, and on arriving at the precise spot, he rushed, with the eagerness of a tiger, to plunge his hand into the soft ground.

He found nothing, and thought he was mistaken.

In the meanwhile the cold sweat stood on his brow.

He rummaged close by it—Nothing.

He rummaged on the right, and on the left—Nothing.

He rummaged in front, and at the back—Nothing.

He was nearly mad, when at last he satisfied himself that on that very morning the earth had been turned.

In fact, whilst Boxtel was lying in bed, Cornelius had gone down to his garden, had taken up the mother-bulb, and, as we have seen, divided it into three.

Boxtel could not bring himself to leave the place.