ge; "it's
all very well to say 'Open!' but what am I to do it with?"

"With the key, to be sure!" said the coachman.

"With the key! Oh, yes! but if you have not got it?"

"How is that? Have not you got the key?" asked the coachman.

"No, I haven't."

"What has become of it?"

"Well, they have taken it from me."

"Who?"

"Some one, I dare say, who had a mind that no one should leave the
town."

"My good man," said the Grand Pensionary, putting out his head from the
window, and risking all for gaining all; "my good man, it is for me,
John de Witt, and for my brother Cornelius, who I am taking away into
exile."

"Oh, Mynheer de Witt! I am indeed very much grieved," said the
gatekeeper, rushing towards the carriage; "but, upon my sacred word, the
key has been taken from me."

"When?"

"This morning."

"By whom?"

"By a pale and thin young man, of about twenty-two."

"And wherefore did you give it up to him?"

"Because he showed me an order, signed and sealed."

"By whom?"

"By the gentlemen of the Town-hall."

"Well, then," said Cornelius calmly, "our doom seems to be fixed."

"Do you know whether the same precaution has been taken at the other
gates?"

"I do not."

"Now then," said John to the coachman, "God commands man to do all that
is in his power to preserve his life; go, and drive to another gate."

And whilst the servant was turning round the vehicle the Grand
Pensionary said to the gatekeeper,--

"Take our thanks for your good intentions; the will must count for the
deed; you had the will to save us, and that, in the eyes of the Lord, is
as if you had succeeded in doing so."

"Alas!" said the gatekeeper, "do you see down there?"

"Drive at a gallop through that group," John called out to the coachman,
"and take the street on the left; it is our only chance."

The group which John alluded to had, for its nucleus, those three men
whom we left looking after the carriage, and who, in the meanwhile, had
been joined by seven or eight others.

These new-comers evidently meant mischief with regard to the carriage.

When they saw the horses galloping down upon them, they placed
themselves across the street, brandishing cudgels in their hands, and
calling out,--

"Stop! stop!"

The coachman, on his side, lashed his horses into increased speed, until
the coach and the men encountered.

The brothers De Witt, enclosed within the body of the carriage, were not
able to see anything;