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_ Gryphus was followed by the mastiff.
The turnkey took the animal round the jail, so that, if needs be, he
might recognize the prisoners.
"Father," said Rosa, "here is the famous prison from which Mynheer
Grotius escaped. You know Mynheer Grotius?"
"Oh, yes, that rogue Grotius, a friend of that villain Barneveldt,
whom I saw executed when I was a child. Ah! so Grotius; and that's the
chamber from which he escaped. Well, I'll answer for it that no one
shall escape after him in my time."
And thus opening the door, he began in the dark to talk to the prisoner.
The dog, on his part, went up to the prisoner, and, growling, smelled
about his legs just as though to ask him what right he had still to be
alive, after having left the prison in the company of the Recorder and
the executioner.
But the fair Rosa called him to her side.
"Well, my master," said Gryphus, holding up his lantern to throw a
little light around, "you see in me your new jailer. I am head turnkey,
and have all the cells under my care. I am not vicious, but I'm not to
be trifled with, as far as discipline goes."
"My good Master Gryphus, I know you perfectly well," said the prisoner,
approaching within the circle of light cast around by the lantern.
"Halloa! that's you, Mynheer van Baerle," said Gryphus. "That's you;
well, I declare, it's astonishing how people do meet."
"Oh, yes; and it's really a great pleasure to me, good Master Gryphus,
to see that your arm is doing well, as you are able to hold your lantern
with it."
Gryphus knitted his brow. "Now, that's just it," he said, "people always
make blunders in politics. His Highness has granted you your life; I'm
sure I should never have done so."
"Don't say so," replied Cornelius; "why not?"
"Because you are the very man to conspire again. You learned people have
dealings with the devil."
"Nonsense, Master Gryphus. Are you dissatisfied with the manner in
which I have set your arm, or with the price that I asked you?" said
Cornelius, laughing.
"On the contrary," growled the jailer, "you have set it only too well.
There is some witchcraft in this. After six weeks, I was able to use
it as if nothing had happened, so much so, that the doctor of the
Buytenhof, who knows his trade well, wanted to break it again, to set it
in the regular way, and promised me that I should have my blessed three
months for my money before I should be able to move it."
"And you did not want that?"
"I said, 'Nay, as long as I can make the sign of the cross with that
arm' (Gryphus was a Roman Catholic), 'I laugh at the devil.'"
"But if you laugh at the devil, Master Gryphus, you ought with so much
more reason to laugh at learned people."
"Ah, learned people, learned people! Why, I would rather have to guard
ten soldiers than one scholar. The soldiers smoke, guzzle, and get
drunk; they are gentle as lambs if you only give them brandy or Moselle,
but scholars, and drink, smoke, and fuddle--ah, yes, that's altogether
different. They keep sober, spend nothing, and have their heads always
clear to make conspiracies. But I tell you, at the very outset, it won't
be such an easy matter for you to conspire. First of all, you will
have no books, no paper, and no conjuring book. It's books that helped
Mynheer Grotius to get off."
"I assure you, Master Gryphus," replied Van Baerle, "that if I have
entertained the idea of escaping, I most decidedly have it no longer."
"Well, well," said Gryphus, "just look sharp: that's what I shall do
also. But, for all that, I say his Highness has made a great mistake."
"Not to have cut off my head? thank you, Master Gryphus."
"Just so, look whether the Mynheer de Witt don't keep very quiet now."
"That's very shocking what you say now, Master Gryphus," cried Van
Baerle, turning away his head to conceal his disgust. "You forget that
one of those unfortunate gentlemen was my friend, and the other my
second father."
"Yes, but I also remember that the one, as well as the other, was a
conspirator. And, moreover, I am speaking from Christian charity."
"Oh, indeed! explain that a little to me, my good Master Gryphus. I do
not quite understand it."
"Well, then, if you had remained on the block of Master Harbruck----"
"What?"
"You would not suffer any longer; whereas, I will not disguise it from
you, I shall lead you a sad life of it."
"Thank you for the promise, Master Gryphus."
And whilst the prisoner smiled ironically at the old jailer, Rosa, from
the outside, answered by a bright smile, which carried sweet consolation
to the heart of Van Baerle.
Gryphus stepped towards the window.
It was still light enough to see, although indistinctly, through the
gray haze of the evening, the vast expanse of the horizon.
"What view has one from here?" asked Gryphus.
"Why, a very fine and pleasant one," said Cornelius, looking at Rosa.
"Yes, yes, too much of a view, too much."
And at this moment the two pigeons, scared by the sight and especially
by the voice of the stranger, left their nest, and disappeared, quite
frightened in the evening mist.
"Halloa! what's this?" cried Gryphus.
"My pigeons," answered Cornelius.
"Your pigeons," cried the jailer, "your pigeons! has a prisoner anything
of his own?"
"Why, then," said Cornelius, "the pigeons which a merciful Father in
Heaven has lent to me."
"So, here we have a breach of the rules already," replied Gryphus.
"Pigeons! ah, young man, young man! I'll tell you one thing, that before
to-morrow is over, your pigeons will boil in my pot."
"First of all you should catch them, Master Gryphus. You won't allow
these pigeons to be mine! Well, I vow they are even less yours than
mine."
"Omittance is no acquittance," growled the jailer, "and I shall
certainly wring their necks before twenty-four hours are over: you may
be sure of that."
Whilst giving utterance to this ill-natured promise, Gryphus put his
head out of the window to examine the nest. This gave Van Baerle time to
run to the door, and squeeze the hand of Rosa, who whispered to him,--
"At nine o'clock this evening."
Gryphus, quite taken up with the desire of catching the pigeons next
day, as he had promised he would do, saw and heard nothing of this short
interlude; and, after having closed the window, he took the arm of his
daughter, left the cell, turned the key twice, drew the bolts, and went
off to make the same kind promise to the other prisoners.
He had scarcely withdrawn, when Cornelius went to the door to listen to
the sound of his footsteps, and, as soon as they had died away, he ran
to the window, and completely demolished the nest of the pigeons.
Rather than expose them to the tender mercies of his bullying jailer,
he drove away for ever those gentle messengers to whom he owed the
happiness of having seen Rosa again.
This visit of the jailer, his brutal threats, and the gloomy prospect of
the harshness with which, as he had before experienced, Gryphus watched
his prisoners,--all this was unable to extinguish in Cornelius the sweet
thoughts, and especially the sweet hope, which the presence of Rosa had
reawakened in his heart.
He waited eagerly to hear the clock of the tower of Loewestein strike
nine.
The last chime was still vibrating through the air, when Cornelius heard
on the staircase the light step and the rustle of the flowing dress of
the fair Frisian maid, and soon after a light appeared at the little
grated window in the door, on which the prisoner fixed his earnest gaze.
The shutter opened on the outside.
"Here I am," said Rosa, out of breath from running up the stairs, "here
I am."
"Oh, my good Rosa."
"You are then glad to see me?"
"Can you ask? But how did you contrive to get here? tell me."
"Now listen to me. My father falls asleep every evening almost
immediately after his supper; I then make him lie down, a little
stupefied with his gin. Don't say anything about it, because, thanks
to this nap, I shall be able to come every evening and chat for an hour
with you."
"Oh, I thank you, Rosa, dear Rosa."
Saying these words, Cornelius put his face so near the little window
that Rosa withdrew hers.
"I have brought back to you your bulbs."
Cornelius's heart leaped with joy. He had not yet dared to ask Rosa what
she had done with the precious treasure which he had intrusted to her.
"Oh, you have preserved them, then?"
"Did you not give them to me as a thing which was dear to you?"
"Yes, but as I have given them to you, it seems to me that they belong
to you."
"They would have belonged to me after your death, but, fortunately, you
are alive now. Oh how I blessed his Highness in my heart! If God grants
to him all the happiness that I have wished him, certainly Prince
William will be the happiest man on earth. When I looked at the Bible
of your godfather Cornelius, I was resolved to bring back to you your
bulbs, only I did not know how to accomplish it. I had, however, already
formed the plan of going to the Stadtholder, to ask from him for my
father the appointment of jailer of Loewestein, when your housekeeper
brought me your letter. Oh, how we wept together! But your letter only
confirmed me the more in my resolution. I then left for Leyden, and the
rest you know."
"What, my dear Rosa, you thought, even before receiving my letter, of
coming to meet me again?"
"If I thought of it," said Rosa, allowing her love to get the better of
her bashfulness, "I thought of nothing else."
And, saying these words, Rosa looked so exceedingly pretty, that for
the second time Cornelius placed his forehead and lips against the wire
grating; of course, we must presume with the laudable desire to thank
the young lady.
Rosa, however, drew back as before.
"In truth," she said, with that coquetry which somehow or other is in
the heart of every young girl, "I have often been sorry that I am not
able to read, but never so much so as when your housekeeper brought me
your letter. I kept the paper in my hands, which spoke to other people,
and which was dumb to poor stupid me."
"So you have often regretted not being able to read," said Cornelius. "I
should just like to know on what occasions."
"Troth," she said, laughing, "to read all the letters which were written
to me."
"Oh, you received letters, Rosa?"
"By hundreds."
"But who wrote to you?"
"Who! why, in the first place, all the students who passed over the
Buytenhof, all the officers who went to parade, all the clerks, and even
the merchants who saw me at my little window."
"And what did you do with all these notes, my dear Rosa?"
"Formerly," she answered, "I got some friend to read them to me, which
was capital fun, but since a certain time--well, what use is it to
attend to all this nonsense?--since a certain time I have burnt them."
"Since a certain time!" exclaimed Cornelius, with a look beaming with
love and joy.
Rosa cast down her eyes, blushing. In her sweet confusion, she did
not observe the lips of Cornelius, which, alas! only met the cold
wire-grating. Yet, in spite of this obstacle, they communicated to the
lips of the young girl the glowing breath of the most tender kiss.
At this sudden outburst of tenderness, Rosa grew very pale,--perhaps
paler than she had been on the day of the execution. She uttered a
plaintive sob, closed her fine eyes, and fled, trying in vain to still
the beating of her heart.
And thus Cornelius was again alone.
Rosa had fled so precipitately, that she completely forgot to return to
Cornelius the three bulbs of the Black Tulip. _
Read next: Chapter 16. Master and Pupil
Read previous: Chapter 14. The Pigeons of Dort
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