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Page 110
But on arriving in the great market-place Rosa at once
stopped, a sudden thought had struck her, just as Homer's
Minerva seizes Achilles by the hair at the moment when he is
about to be carried away by his anger.
"Good Heaven!" she muttered to herself, "I have made a
grievous blunder; it may be I have ruined Cornelius, the
tulip, and myself. I have given the alarm, and perhaps
awakened suspicion. I am but a woman; these men may league
themselves against me, and then I shall be lost. If I am
lost that matters nothing, -- but Cornelius and the tulip!"
She reflected for a moment.
"If I go to that Boxtel, and do not know him; if that Boxtel
is not my Jacob, but another fancier, who has also
discovered the black tulip; or if my tulip has been stolen
by some one else, or has already passed into the hands of a
third person; -- if I do not recognize the man, only the
tulip, how shall I prove that it belongs to me? On the other
hand, if I recognise this Boxtel as Jacob, who knows what
will come out of it? whilst we are contesting with each
other, the tulip will die."
In the meanwhile, a great noise was heard, like the distant
roar of the sea, at the other extremity of the market-place.
People were running about, doors opening and shutting, Rosa
alone was unconscious of all this hubbub among the
multitude.
"We must return to the President," she muttered.
"Well, then, let us return," said the boatman.
They took a small street, which led them straight to the
mansion of Mynheer van Systens, who with his best pen in his
finest hand continued to draw up his report.
Everywhere on her way Rosa heard people speaking only of the
black tulip, and the prize of a hundred thousand guilders.
The news had spread like wildfire through the town.
Rosa had not a little difficulty is penetrating a second
time into the office of Mynheer van Systens, who, however,
was again moved by the magic name of the black tulip.
But when he recognised Rosa, whom in his own mind he had set
down as mad, or even worse, he grew angry, and wanted to
send her away.
Rosa, however, clasped her hands, and said with that tone of
honest truth which generally finds its way to the hearts of
men, --
"For Heaven's sake, sir, do not turn me away; listen to what
I have to tell you, and if it be not possible for you to do
me justice, at least you will not one day have to reproach
yourself before God for having made yourself the accomplice
of a bad action."
Van Systens stamped his foot with impatience; it was the
second time that Rosa interrupted him in the midst of a
composition which stimulated his vanity, both as a
burgomaster and as President of the Horticultural Society.
"But my report!" he cried, -- "my report on the black
tulip!"
"Mynheer van Systens," Rosa continued, with the firmness of
innocence and truth, "your report on the black tulip will,
if you don't hear me, be based on crime or on falsehood. I
implore you, sir, let this Master Boxtel, whom I assert to
be Master Jacob, be brought here before you and me, and I
swear that I will leave him in undisturbed possession of the
tulip if I do not recognise the flower and its holder."
"Well, I declare, here is a proposal," said Van Systens.
"What do you mean?"
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