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Page 44
Boxtel put a lighted dark lantern into his pocket, mounted
the ladder, and slipped into the dry-room.
On reaching this sanctuary of the florist he stopped,
supporting himself against the table; his legs failed him,
his heart beat as if it would choke him. Here it was even
worse than in the garden; there Boxtel was only a
trespasser, here he was a thief.
However, he took courage again: he had not gone so far to
turn back with empty hands.
But in vain did he search the whole room, open and shut all
the drawers, even that privileged one where the parcel which
had been so fatal to Cornelius had been deposited; he found
ticketed, as in a botanical garden, the "Jane," the "John de
Witt," the hazel-nut, and the roasted-coffee coloured tulip;
but of the black tulip, or rather the seedling bulbs within
which it was still sleeping, not a trace was found.
And yet, on looking over the register of seeds and bulbs,
which Van Baerle kept in duplicate, if possible even with
greater exactitude and care than the first commercial houses
of Amsterdam their ledgers, Boxtel read these lines: --
"To-day, 20th of August, 1672, I have taken up the mother
bulb of the grand black tulip, which I have divided into
three perfect suckers."
"Oh these bulbs, these bulbs!" howled Boxtel, turning over
everything in the dry-room, "where could he have concealed
them?"
Then, suddenly striking his forehead in his frenzy, he
called out, "Oh wretch that I am! Oh thrice fool Boxtel!
Would any one be separated from his bulbs? Would any one
leave them at Dort, when one goes to the Hague? Could one
live far from one's bulbs, when they enclose the grand black
tulip? He had time to get hold of them, the scoundrel, he
has them about him, he has taken them to the Hague!"
It was like a flash of lightning which showed to Boxtel the
abyss of a uselessly committed crime.
Boxtel sank quite paralyzed on that very table, and on that
very spot where, some hours before, the unfortunate Van
Baerle had so leisurely, and with such intense delight,
contemplated his darling bulbs.
"Well, then, after all," said the envious Boxtel, -- raising
his livid face from his hands in which it had been buried --
"if he has them, he can keep them only as long as he lives,
and ---- "
The rest of this detestable thought was expressed by a
hideous smile.
"The bulbs are at the Hague," he said, "therefore, I can no
longer live at Dort: away, then, for them, to the Hague! to
the Hague!"
And Boxtel, without taking any notice of the treasures about
him, so entirely were his thoughts absorbed by another
inestimable treasure, let himself out by the window, glided
down the ladder, carried it back to the place whence he had
taken it, and, like a beast of prey, returned growling to
his house.
Chapter 9
The Family Cell
It was about midnight when poor Van Baerle was locked up in
the prison of the Buytenhof.
What Rosa foresaw had come to pass. On finding the cell of
Cornelius de Witt empty, the wrath of the people ran very
high, and had Gryphus fallen into the hands of those madmen
he would certainly have had to pay with his life for the
prisoner.
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