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Page 43
As soon as it was dark he got up.
He then climbed into his sycamore.
He had calculated correctly; no one thought of keeping watch
over the garden; the house and the servants were all in the
utmost confusion.
He heard the clock strike -- ten, eleven, twelve.
At midnight, with a beating heart, trembling hands, and a
livid countenance, he descended from the tree, took a
ladder, leaned it against the wall, mounted it to the last
step but one, and listened.
All was perfectly quiet, not a sound broke the silence of
the night; one solitary light, that of the housekeeper, was
burning in the house.
This silence and this darkness emboldened Boxtel; he got
astride the wall, stopped for an instant, and, after having
ascertained that there was nothing to fear, he put his
ladder from his own garden into that of Cornelius, and
descended.
Then, knowing to an inch where the bulbs which were to
produce the black tulip were planted, he ran towards the
spot, following, however, the gravelled walks in order not
to be betrayed by his footprints, and, on arriving at the
precise spot, he proceeded, with the eagerness of a tiger,
to plunge his hand into the soft ground.
He found nothing, and thought he was mistaken.
In the meanwhile, the cold sweat stood on his brow.
He felt about close by it, -- nothing.
He felt about on the right, and on the left, -- nothing.
He felt about in front and at the back, -- nothing.
He was nearly mad, when at last he satisfied himself that on
that very morning the earth had been disturbed.
In fact, whilst Boxtel was lying in bed, Cornelius had gone
down to his garden, had taken up the mother bulb, and, as we
have seen, divided it into three.
Boxtel could not bring himself to leave the place. He dug up
with his hands more than ten square feet of ground.
At last no doubt remained of his misfortune. Mad with rage,
he returned to his ladder, mounted the wall, drew up the
ladder, flung it into his own garden, and jumped after it.
All at once, a last ray of hope presented itself to his
mind: the seedling bulbs might be in the dry-room; it was
therefore only requisite to make his entry there as he had
done into the garden.
There he would find them, and, moreover, it was not at all
difficult, as the sashes of the dry-room might be raised
like those of a greenhouse. Cornelius had opened them on
that morning, and no one had thought of closing them again.
Everything, therefore, depended upon whether he could
procure a ladder of sufficient length, -- one of twenty-five
feet instead of ten.
Boxtel had noticed in the street where he lived a house
which was being repaired, and against which a very tall
ladder was placed.
This ladder would do admirably, unless the workmen had taken
it away.
He ran to the house: the ladder was there. Boxtel took it,
carried it with great exertion to his garden, and with even
greater difficulty raised it against the wall of Van
Baerle's house, where it just reached to the window.
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