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Page 42
He knew too well what was about to happen in the house of
the poor doctor to feel any desire to look into it. He did
not even get up when his only servant -- who envied the lot
of the servants of Cornelius just as bitterly as Boxtel did
that of their master -- entered his bedroom. He said to the
man, --
"I shall not get up to-day, I am ill."
About nine o'clock he heard a great noise in the street
which made him tremble, at this moment he was paler than a
real invalid, and shook more violently than a man in the
height of fever.
His servant entered the room; Boxtel hid himself under the
counterpane.
"Oh, sir!" cried the servant, not without some inkling that,
whilst deploring the mishap which had befallen Van Baerle,
he was announcing agreeable news to his master, -- "oh, sir!
you do not know, then, what is happening at this moment?"
"How can I know it?" answered Boxtel, with an almost
unintelligible voice.
"Well, Mynheer Boxtel, at this moment your neighbour
Cornelius van Baerle is arrested for high treason."
"Nonsense!" Boxtel muttered, with a faltering voice; "the
thing is impossible."
"Faith, sir, at any rate that's what people say; and,
besides, I have seen Judge van Spennen with the archers
entering the house."
"Well, if you have seen it with your own eyes, that's a
different case altogether."
"At all events," said the servant, "I shall go and inquire
once more. Be you quiet, sir, I shall let you know all about
it."
Boxtel contented himself with signifying his approval of the
zeal of his servant by dumb show.
The man went out, and returned in half an hour.
"Oh, sir, all that I told you is indeed quite true."
"How so?"
"Mynheer van Baerle is arrested, and has been put into a
carriage, and they are driving him to the Hague."
"To the Hague!"
"Yes, to the Hague, and if what people say is true, it won't
do him much good."
"And what do they say?" Boxtel asked.
"Faith, sir, they say -- but it is not quite sure -- that by
this hour the burghers must be murdering Mynheer Cornelius
and Mynheer John de Witt."
"Oh," muttered, or rather growled Boxtel, closing his eyes
from the dreadful picture which presented itself to his
imagination.
"Why, to be sure," said the servant to himself, whilst
leaving the room, "Mynheer Isaac Boxtel must be very sick
not to have jumped from his bed on hearing such good news."
And, in reality, Isaac Boxtel was very sick, like a man who
has murdered another.
But he had murdered his man with a double object; the first
was attained, the second was still to be attained.
Night closed in. It was the night which Boxtel had looked
forward to.
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