hat was going on all this Time in the Mind of one of the
Spectators

Whilst Cornelius was engaged with his own thoughts, a coach had driven
up to the scaffold. This vehicle was for the prisoner. He was invited to
enter it, and he obeyed.

His last look was towards the Buytenhof. He hoped to see at the window
the face of Rosa, brightening up again.

But the coach was drawn by good horses, who soon carried Van Baerle
away from among the shouts which the rabble roared in honour of the most
magnanimous Stadtholder, mixing with it a spice of abuse against the
brothers De Witt and the godson of Cornelius, who had just now been
saved from death.

This reprieve suggested to the worthy spectators remarks such as the
following:--

"It's very fortunate that we used such speed in having justice done to
that great villain John, and to that little rogue Cornelius, otherwise
his Highness might have snatched them from us, just as he has done this
fellow."

Among all the spectators whom Van Baerle's execution had attracted to
the Buytenhof, and whom the sudden turn of affairs had disagreeably
surprised, undoubtedly the one most disappointed was a certain
respectably dressed burgher, who from early morning had made such a
good use of his feet and elbows that he at last was separated from the
scaffold only by the file of soldiers which surrounded it.

Many had shown themselves eager to see the perfidious blood of the
guilty Cornelius flow, but not one had shown such a keen anxiety as the
individual just alluded to.

The most furious had come to the Buytenhof at daybreak, to secure a
better place; but he, outdoing even them, had passed the night at the
threshold of the prison, from whence, as we have already said, he had
advanced to the very foremost rank, unguibus et rostro,--that is to say,
coaxing some, and kicking the others.

And when the executioner had conducted the prisoner to the scaffold, the
burgher, who had mounted on the stone of the pump the better to see and
be seen, made to the executioner a sign which meant,--

"It's a bargain, isn't it?"

The executioner answered by another sign, which was meant to say,--

"Be quiet, it's all right."

This burgher was no other than Mynheer Isaac Boxtel, who since the
arrest of Cornelius had come to the Hague to try if he could not get
hold of the three bulbs of the black tulip.

Boxtel had at first tried to gain over Gryphus to his interest, but the
jailer had not onl