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Page 40
"Ah! you will not," said Van Spennen, when he saw Cornelius
standing immovable and bewildered, "then I shall open the
drawer myself."
And, pulling out the drawer to its full length, the
magistrate at first alighted on about twenty bulbs,
carefully arranged and ticketed, and then on the paper
parcel, which had remained in exactly the same state as it
was when delivered by the unfortunate Cornelius de Witt to
his godson.
The magistrate broke the seals, tore off the envelope, cast
an eager glance on the first leaves which met his eye and
then exclaimed, in a terrible voice, --
"Well, justice has been rightly informed after all!"
"How," said Cornelius, "how is this?"
"Don't pretend to be ignorant, Mynheer van Baerle," answered
the magistrate. "Follow me."
"How's that! follow you?" cried the Doctor.
"Yes, sir, for in the name of the States I arrest you."
Arrests were not as yet made in the name of William of
Orange; he had not been Stadtholder long enough for that.
"Arrest me!" cried Cornelius; "but what have I done?"
"That's no affair of mine, Doctor; you will explain all that
before your judges."
"Where?"
"At the Hague."
Cornelius, in mute stupefaction, embraced his old nurse, who
was in a swoon; shook hands with his servants, who were
bathed in tears, and followed the magistrate, who put him in
a coach as a prisoner of state and had him driven at full
gallop to the Hague.
Chapter 8
An Invasion
The incident just related was, as the reader has guessed
before this, the diabolical work of Mynheer Isaac Boxtel.
It will be remembered that, with the help of his telescope,
not even the least detail of the private meeting between
Cornelius de Witt and Van Baerle had escaped him. He had,
indeed, heard nothing, but he had seen everything, and had
rightly concluded that the papers intrusted by the Warden to
the Doctor must have been of great importance, as he saw Van
Baerle so carefully secreting the parcel in the drawer where
he used to keep his most precious bulbs.
The upshot of all this was that when Boxtel, who watched the
course of political events much more attentively than his
neighbour Cornelius was used to do, heard the news of the
brothers De Witt being arrested on a charge of high treason
against the States, he thought within his heart that very
likely he needed only to say one word, and the godson would
be arrested as well as the godfather.
Yet, full of happiness as was Boxtel's heart at the chance,
he at first shrank with horror from the idea of informing
against a man whom this information might lead to the
scaffold.
But there is this terrible thing in evil thoughts, that evil
minds soon grow familiar with them.
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