st Tyckelaer, with a heart full of spite and malice, and with no
particular plan settled in his mind, was one of the foremost, being
paraded about by the Orange party like a hero of probity, national
honour, and Christian charity.

This daring miscreant detailed, with all the embellishments and
flourishes suggested by his base mind and his ruffianly imagination, the
attempts which he pretended Cornelius de Witt had made to corrupt him;
the sums of money which were promised, and all the diabolical stratagems
planned beforehand to smooth for him, Tyckelaer, all the difficulties in
the path of murder.

And every phase of his speech, eagerly listened to by the populace,
called forth enthusiastic cheers for the Prince of Orange, and groans
and imprecations of blind fury against the brothers De Witt.

The mob even began to vent its rage by inveighing against the iniquitous
judges, who had allowed such a detestable criminal as the villain
Cornelius to get off so cheaply.

Some of the agitators whispered, "He will be off, he will escape from
us!"

Others replied, "A vessel is waiting for him at Schevening, a French
craft. Tyckelaer has seen her."

"Honest Tyckelaer! Hurrah for Tyckelaer!" the mob cried in chorus.

"And let us not forget," a voice exclaimed from the crowd, "that at the
same time with Cornelius his brother John, who is as rascally a traitor
as himself, will likewise make his escape."

"And the two rogues will in France make merry with our money, with the
money for our vessels, our arsenals, and our dockyards, which they have
sold to Louis XIV."

"Well, then, don't let us allow them to depart!" advised one of the
patriots who had gained the start of the others.

"Forward to the prison, to the prison!" echoed the crowd.

Amid these cries, the citizens ran along faster and faster, cocking
their muskets, brandishing their hatchets, and looking death and
defiance in all directions.

No violence, however, had as yet been committed; and the file of
horsemen who were guarding the approaches of the Buytenhof remained
cool, unmoved, silent, much more threatening in their impassibility than
all this crowd of burghers, with their cries, their agitation, and their
threats. The men on their horses, indeed, stood like so many statues,
under the eye of their chief, Count Tilly, the captain of the mounted
troops of the Hague, who had his sword drawn, but held it with its point
downwards, in a line with the straps o