THE BLACK TULIP (Historical Novel). Alexandre Dumas
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"Never mind, but drive on," said John, "I have with me the order for the commutation of the punishment, the gate-keeper will let us through."
The carriage moved along, but it was evident that the driver was no longer urging his horses with the same degree of confidence.
Moreover, as John de Witt put his head out of the carriage window, he was seen and recognized by a brewer, who, being behind his companions, was just shutting his door in all haste to join them at the Buytenhof. He uttered a cry of surprise, and ran after two other men before him, whom he overtook about a hundred yards farther on, and told them what he had seen. The three men then stopped, looking after the carriage, being however not yet quite sure as to whom it contained.
The carriage in the meanwhile arrived at the Tol-Hek.
"Open!" cried the coachman.
"Open!" echoed the gatekeeper, from the threshold of his lodge; "it's all very well to say 'Open!' but what am I to do it with?"
"With the key, to be sure!" said the coachman.
"With the key! Oh, yes! but if you have not got it?"
"How is that? Have not you got the key?" asked the coachman.
"No, I haven't."
"What has become of it?"
"Well, they have taken it from me."
"Who?"
"Some one, I dare say, who had a mind that no one should leave the town."
"My good man," said the Grand Pensionary, putting out his head from the window, and risking all for gaining all; "my good man, it is for me, John de Witt, and for my brother Cornelius, who I am taking away into exile."
"Oh, Mynheer de Witt! I am indeed very much grieved," said the gatekeeper, rushing towards the carriage; "but, upon my sacred word, the key has been taken from me."
"When?"
"This morning."
"By whom?"
"By a pale and thin young man, of about twenty-two."
"And wherefore did you give it up to him?"
"Because he showed me an order, signed and sealed."
"By whom?"
"By the gentlemen of the Town-hall."
"Well, then," said Cornelius calmly, "our doom seems to be fixed."
"Do you know whether the same precaution has been taken at the other gates?"
"I do not."
"Now then," said John to the coachman, "God commands man to do all that is in his power to preserve his life; go, and drive to another gate."
And whilst the servant was turning round the vehicle the Grand Pensionary said to the gatekeeper,—
"Take our thanks for your good intentions; the will must count for the deed; you had the will to save us, and that, in the eyes of the Lord, is as if you had succeeded in doing so."
"Alas!" said the gatekeeper, "do you see down there?"
"Drive at a gallop through that group," John called out to the coachman, "and take the street on the left; it is our only chance."
The group which John alluded to had, for its nucleus, those three men whom we left looking after the carriage, and who, in the meanwhile, had been joined by seven or eight others.
These new-comers evidently meant mischief with regard to the carriage.
When they saw the horses galloping down upon them, they placed themselves across the street, brandishing cudgels in their hands, and calling out,—
"Stop! stop!"
The coachman, on his side, lashed his horses into increased speed, until the coach and the men encountered.
The brothers De Witt, enclosed within the body of the carriage, were not able to see anything; but they felt a severe shock, occasioned by the rearing of the horses. The whole vehicle for a moment shook and stopped; but immediately after, passing over something round and elastic, which seemed to be the body of a prostrate man set off again amidst a volley of the fiercest oaths.
"Alas!" said Cornelius, "I am afraid we have hurt some one."
"Gallop! gallop!" called John.
But, notwithstanding this order, the coachman suddenly came to a stop.
"Now, then, what is the matter again?" asked John.
"Look there!" said the coachman.
John looked. The whole mass of the populace from the Buytenhof appeared at the extremity of the street along which the carriage was to proceed, and its stream moved roaring and rapid, as if lashed on by a hurricane.
"Stop and get off," said John to the coachman; "it is useless to go any farther; we are lost!"
"Here they are! here they are!" five hundred voices were crying at the same time.
"Yes, here they are, the traitors, the murderers, the assassins!" answered the men who were running after the carriage to the people who were coming to meet it. The former carried in their arms the bruised body of one of their companions, who, trying to seize the reins of the horses, had been trodden down by them.
This was the object over which the two brothers had felt their carriage pass.
The coachman stopped, but, however strongly his master urged him, he refused to get off and save himself.
In an instant the carriage was hemmed in between those who followed and those who met it. It rose above the mass of moving heads like a floating island. But in another instant it came to a dead stop. A blacksmith had with his hammer struck down one of the horses, which fell in the traces.
At this moment, the shutter of a window opened, and disclosed the sallow face and the dark eyes of the young man, who with intense interest watched the scene which was preparing. Behind him appeared the head of the officer, almost as pale as himself.
"Good heavens, Monseigneur, what is going on there?" whispered the officer.
"Something very terrible, to a certainty," replied the other.
"Don't you see, Monseigneur, they are dragging the Grand Pensionary from the carriage, they strike him, they tear him to pieces!"
"Indeed, these people must certainly be prompted by a most violent indignation," said the young man, with the same impassible tone which he had preserved all along.
"And here is Cornelius, whom they now likewise drag out of the carriage,—Cornelius, who is already quite broken and mangled by the torture. Only look, look!"
"Indeed, it is Cornelius, and no mistake."
The officer uttered a feeble cry, and turned his head away; the brother of the Grand Pensionary, before having set foot on the ground, whilst still on the bottom step of the carriage, was struck down with an iron bar which broke his skull. He rose once more, but immediately fell again.
Some fellows then seized him by the feet, and dragged him into the crowd, into the middle of which one might have followed his bloody track, and he was soon closed in among the savage yells of malignant exultation.
The young man—a thing which would have been thought impossible—grew even paler than before, and his eyes were for a moment veiled behind the lids.
The officer saw this sign of compassion, and, wishing to avail himself of this softened tone of his feelings, continued,—
"Come, come, Monseigneur, for here they are also going to murder the Grand Pensionary."
But the young man had already opened his eyes again.
"To be sure," he said. "These people are really implacable. It does no one good to offend them."
"Monseigneur," said the officer,