away all my spirit, I mean Rosa's absence? But
suppose I should waste ten years of my life in making a file to file off
my bars, or in braiding cords to let myself down from the window, or
in sticking wings on my shoulders to fly, like Daedalus? But luck is
against me now. The file would get dull, the rope would break, or my
wings would melt in the sun; I should surely kill myself, I should
be picked up maimed and crippled; I should be labelled, and put on
exhibition in the museum at the Hague between the blood-stained doublet
of William the Taciturn and the female walrus captured at Stavesen, and
the only result of my enterprise will have been to procure me a place
among the curiosities of Holland.

"But no; and it is much better so. Some fine day Gryphus will commit
some atrocity. I am losing my patience, since I have lost the joy and
company of Rosa, and especially since I have lost my tulip. Undoubtedly,
some day or other Gryphus will attack me in a manner painful to my
self-respect, or to my love, or even threaten my personal safety. I
don't know how it is, but since my imprisonment I feel a strange and
almost irresistible pugnacity. Well, I shall get at the throat of that
old villain, and strangle him."

Cornelius at these words stopped for a moment, biting his lips and
staring out before him; then, eagerly returning to an idea which seemed
to possess a strange fascination for him, he continued,--

"Well, and once having strangled him, why should I not take his keys
from him, why not go down the stairs as if I had done the most virtuous
action, why not go and fetch Rosa from her room, why not tell her all,
and jump from her window into the Waal? I am expert enough as a swimmer
to save both of us. Rosa,--but, oh Heaven, Gryphus is her father!
Whatever may be her affection for me, she will never approve of my
having strangled her father, brutal and malicious as he has been.

"I shall have to enter into an argument with her; and in the midst of my
speech some wretched turnkey who has found Gryphus with the death-rattle
in his throat, or perhaps actually dead, will come along and put his
hand on my shoulder. Then I shall see the Buytenhof again, and the gleam
of that infernal sword,--which will not stop half-way a second time, but
will make acquaintance with the nape of my neck.

"It will not do, Cornelius, my fine fellow,--it is a bad plan. But,
then, what is to become of me, and how shall I find Rosa again?"