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Page 56
"So may God grant me mercy, and to her health and long life!
"Cornelius van Baerle."
The prisoner then, giving the Bible to Rosa, said, --
"Read."
"Alas!" she answered, "I have already told you I cannot
read."
Cornelius then read to Rosa the testament that he had just
made.
The agony of the poor girl almost overpowered her.
"Do you accept my conditions?" asked the prisoner, with a
melancholy smile, kissing the trembling hands of the
afflicted girl.
"Oh, I don't know, sir," she stammered.
"You don't know, child, and why not?"
"Because there is one condition which I am afraid I cannot
keep."
"Which? I should have thought that all was settled between
us."
"You give me the hundred thousand guilders as a marriage
portion, don't you?
"And under the condition of my marrying a man whom I love?"
"Certainly."
"Well, then, sir, this money cannot belong to me. I shall
never love any one; neither shall I marry."
And, after having with difficulty uttered these words, Rosa
almost swooned away in the violence of her grief.
Cornelius, frightened at seeing her so pale and sinking, was
going to take her in his arms, when a heavy step, followed
by other dismal sounds, was heard on the staircase, amidst
the continued barking of the dog.
"They are coming to fetch you. Oh God! Oh God!" cried Rosa,
wringing her hands. "And have you nothing more to tell me?"
She fell on her knees with her face buried in her hands and
became almost senseless.
"I have only to say, that I wish you to preserve these bulbs
as a most precious treasure, and carefully to treat them
according to the directions I have given you. Do it for my
sake, and now farewell, Rosa."
"Yes, yes," she said, without raising her head, "I will do
anything you bid me, except marrying," she added, in a low
voice, "for that, oh! that is impossible for me."
She then put the cherished treasure next her beating heart.
The noise on the staircase which Cornelius and Rosa had
heard was caused by the Recorder, who was coming for the
prisoner. He was followed by the executioner, by the
soldiers who were to form the guard round the scaffold, and
by some curious hangers-on of the prison.
Cornelius, without showing any weakness, but likewise
without any bravado, received them rather as friends than as
persecutors, and quietly submitted to all those preparations
which these men were obliged to make in performance of their
duty.
Then, casting a glance into the yard through the narrow
iron-barred window of his cell, he perceived the scaffold,
and, at twenty paces distant from it, the gibbet, from
which, by order of the Stadtholder, the outraged remains of
the two brothers De Witt had been taken down.
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