The Black Tulip

“Then give up to us the seditious papers which you secrete in your house.”

“The seditious papers!” repeated Cornelius, quite dumfounded at the imputation.

“Now don’t look astonished, if you please.”

“I vow to you, Master van Spennen,” Cornelius replied, “that I am completely at a loss to understand what you want.”

“Then I shall put you in the way, Doctor,” said the judge; “give up to us the papers which the traitor Cornelius de Witt deposited with you in the month of January last.”

A sudden light came into the mind of Cornelius.

“Halloa!” said Van Spennen, “you begin now to remember, don’t you?”

“Indeed I do, but you spoke of seditious papers, and I have none of that sort.”

“You deny it then?”

“Certainly I do.”

The magistrate turned round and took a rapid survey of the whole cabinet.

“Where is the apartment you call your dry-room?” he asked.

“The very same where you now are, Master van Spennen.”

The magistrate cast a glance at a small note at the top of his papers.

“All right,” he said, like a man who is sure of his ground.

Then, turning round towards Cornelius, he continued, “Will you give up those papers to me?”

“But I cannot, Master van Spennen; those papers do not belong to me; they have been deposited with me as a trust, and a trust is sacred.”

“Dr. Cornelius,” said the judge, “in the name of the States, I order you to open this drawer, and to give up to me the papers which it contains.”

Saying this, the judge pointed with his finger to the third drawer of the press, near the fireplace.

In this very drawer, indeed the papers deposited by the Warden of the Dikes with his godson were lying; a proof that the police had received very exact information.

“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.

Besides this, Mynheer Isaac Boxtel encouraged himself with the following sophism: —

“Cornelius de Witt is a bad citizen, as he is charged with high treason, and arrested.

“I, on the contrary, am a good citizen, as I am not charged with anything in the world, as I am as free as the air of heaven.”

“If, therefore, Cornelius de Witt is a bad citizen, – of which there can be no doubt, as he is charged with high treason, and arrested, – his accomplice, Cornelius van Baerle, is no less a bad citizen than himself.

“And, as I am a good citizen, and as it is the duty of every good citizen to inform against the bad ones, it is my duty to inform against Cornelius van Baerle.”

Specious as this mode of reasoning might sound, it would not perhaps have taken so complete a hold of Boxtel, nor would he perhaps have yielded to the mere desire of vengeance which was gnawing at his heart, had not the demon of envy been joined with that of cupidity.

Boxtel was quite aware of the progress which Van Baerle had made towards producing the grand black tulip.

Dr. Cornelius, notwithstanding all his modesty, had not been able to hide from his most intimate friends that he was all but certain to win, in the year of grace 1673, the prize of a hundred thousand guilders offered by the Horticultural Society of Haarlem.

It was just this certainty of Cornelius van Baerle that caused the fever which raged in the heart of Isaac Boxtel.

If Cornelius should be arrested there would necessarily be a great upset in his house, and during the night after his arrest no one would think of keeping watch over the tulips in his garden.