Page:The black tulip (IA 10892334.2209.emory.edu).pdf/92

 but a moment—much less time than we have taken to describe it—Gryphus then proceeded on his way, Cornelius was forced to follow him, and five minutes after he entered his prison, of which it is unnecessary to say more, as the reader is already acquainted with it.

Gryphus pointed with his finger to the bed on which the martyr had suffered so much, who on that day had rendered his soul to God. Then, taking up his cresset, he quitted the cell.

Thus left alone Cornelius threw himself on his bed, but he slept not; he kept his eye fixed on the narrow window, barred with iron, which looked on the Buitenhof; and in this way saw from behind the trees that first pale beam of light which morning sheds on the earth, as a white mantle.

Now and then during the night, horses had galloped at a smart pace over the Buitenhof, the heavy tramp of the patrols had resounded from the pavement, and the slow matches of the arquebuses, flaring in the east wind, had thrown up at intervals a sudden glare as far as to the panes of his window.

But when the rising sun began to gild the coping stones at the gable ends of the houses, Cornelius, eager to know whether there was any living creature about him, approached the window, and cast a sad look round the circular yard before him.

At the end of the yard a dark mass, tinted with a dingy blue by the morning dawn, rose before him, its dark outlines standing out in contrast to the houses already illuminated by the pale light of early morning.

Cornelius recognised the gibbet.

On it were suspended two shapeless trunks, which indeed were no more than bleeding skeletons.

The good people of the Hague had chopped off the