the yard through the narrow iron-barred
window of his cell, he perceived the scaffold, and, at twenty paces
distant from it, the gibbet, from which, by order of the Stadtholder,
the outraged remains of the two brothers De Witt had been taken down.

When the moment came to descend in order to follow the guards, Cornelius
sought with his eyes the angelic look of Rosa, but he saw, behind the
swords and halberds, only a form lying outstretched near a wooden bench,
and a deathlike face half covered with long golden locks.

But Rosa, whilst falling down senseless, still obeying her friend, had
pressed her hand on her velvet bodice and, forgetting everything in
the world besides, instinctively grasped the precious deposit which
Cornelius had intrusted to her care.

Leaving the cell, the young man could still see in the convulsively
clinched fingers of Rosa the yellowish leaf from that Bible on which
Cornelius de Witt had with such difficulty and pain written these few
lines, which, if Van Baerle had read them, would undoubtedly have been
the saving of a man and a tulip.

Chapter 12. The Execution

Cornelius had not three hundred paces to walk outside the prison to
reach the foot of the scaffold. At the bottom of the staircase, the dog
quietly looked at him whilst he was passing; Cornelius even fancied
he saw in the eyes of the monster a certain expression as it were of
compassion.

The dog perhaps knew the condemned prisoners, and only bit those who
left as free men.

The shorter the way from the door of the prison to the foot of the
scaffold, the more fully, of course, it was crowded with curious people.

These were the same who, not satisfied with the blood which they had
shed three days before, were now craving for a new victim.

And scarcely had Cornelius made his appearance than a fierce groan ran
through the whole street, spreading all over the yard, and re-echoing
from the streets which led to the scaffold, and which were likewise
crowded with spectators.

The scaffold indeed looked like an islet at the confluence of several
rivers.

In the midst of these threats, groans, and yells, Cornelius, very likely
in order not to hear them, had buried himself in his own thoughts.

And what did he think of in his last melancholy journey?

Neither of his enemies, nor of his judges, nor of his executioners.

He thought of the beautiful tulips which he would see from heaven above,
at Ceylon, or Bengal, or el