sewhere, when he would be able to look with
pity on this earth, where John and Cornelius de Witt had been murdered
for having thought too much of politics, and where Cornelius van Baerle
was about to be murdered for having thought too much of tulips.

"It is only one stroke of the axe," said the philosopher to himself,
"and my beautiful dream will begin to be realised."

Only there was still a chance, just as it had happened before to M. de
Chalais, to M. de Thou, and other slovenly executed people, that the
headsman might inflict more than one stroke, that is to say, more than
one martyrdom, on the poor tulip-fancier.

Yet, notwithstanding all this, Van Baerle mounted the scaffold not the
less resolutely, proud of having been the friend of that illustrious
John, and godson of that noble Cornelius de Witt, whom the ruffians, who
were now crowding to witness his own doom, had torn to pieces and burnt
three days before.

He knelt down, said his prayers, and observed, not without a feeling of
sincere joy, that, laying his head on the block, and keeping his eyes
open, he would be able to his last moment to see the grated window of
the Buytenhof.

At length the fatal moment arrived, and Cornelius placed his chin on the
cold damp block. But at this moment his eyes closed involuntarily, to
receive more resolutely the terrible avalanche which was about to fall
on his head, and to engulf his life.

A gleam like that of lightning passed across the scaffold: it was the
executioner raising his sword.

Van Baerle bade farewell to the great black tulip, certain of awaking in
another world full of light and glorious tints.

Three times he felt, with a shudder, the cold current of air from the
knife near his neck, but what a surprise! he felt neither pain nor
shock.

He saw no change in the colour of the sky, or of the world around him.

Then suddenly Van Baerle felt gentle hands raising him, and soon stood
on his feet again, although trembling a little.

He looked around him. There was some one by his side, reading a large
parchment, sealed with a huge seal of red wax.

And the same sun, yellow and pale, as it behooves a Dutch sun to be, was
shining in the skies; and the same grated window looked down upon
him from the Buytenhof; and the same rabble, no longer yelling, but
completely thunderstruck, were staring at him from the streets below.

Van Baerle began to be sensible to what was going on around him.

His Highne