Page:The black tulip (IA 10892334.2209.emory.edu).pdf/94

 muttered, with the cold sweat on his brow, and sank on his bed, his arms hanging by his side, and his eyes closed.

“The brothers De Witte have been judged by the people,” said Gryphus; “you call that murdered, do you? well, I call it executed.”

And seeing that the prisoner was not only quiet, but entirely prostrate and senseless, he rushed from the cell, violently slamming the door, and noisily drawing the bolts.

Recovering his consciousness, Cornelius found him. self alone, and recognised the room where he was,—‘the family cell’ as Gryphus had called it—as the fatal passage leading to ignominious death. And as he was a philosopher, and, more than that, as he was a Christian, he began to pray for the soul of his godfather, then for that of the Grand Pensionary, and at last submitted with resignation to all the sufferings which God might ordain for him.

Then turning again to the concerns of earth, and having satisfied himself that he was alone in his dungeon, he drew from his breast the three bulbs of the black tulip, and concealed them behind a block of stone, on which the traditional water-jug of the prison was standing, in the darkest corner of his cell.

Useless labour of so many years! such sweet hopes crushed; his discovery was, after all, to lead to nought, just as his own career was to be cut short. Here, in his prison, there was not a trace of vegetation, not an atom of soil, not a ray of sunshine.

At this thought Cornelius fell into a gloomy despair, from which he was only roused by an extraordinary circumstance.

What was this circumstance?

We shall inform the reader in the next chapter.