_ 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.
Now in that night Boxtel would climb over the wall and, as he knew the
position of the bulb which was to produce the grand black tulip, he
would filch it; and instead of flowering for Cornelius, it would flower
for him, Isaac; he also, instead of Van Baerle, would have the prize
of a hundred thousand guilders, not to speak of the sublime honour of
calling the new flower Tulipa nigra Boxtellensis,--a result which would
satisfy not only his vengeance, but also his cupidity and his ambition.
Awake, he thought of nothing but the grand black tulip; asleep, he
dreamed of it.
At last, on the 19th of August, about two o'clock in the afternoon,
the temptation grew so strong, that Mynheer Isaac was no longer able to
resist it.
Accordingly, he wrote an anonymous information, the minute exactness of
which made up for its want of authenticity, and posted his letter.
Never did a venomous paper, slipped into the jaws of the bronze lions at
Venice, produce a more prompt and terrible effect.
On the same evening the letter reached the principal magistrate, who
without a moment's delay convoked his colleagues early for the next
morning. On the following morning, therefore, they assembled, and
decided on Van Baerle's arrest, placing the order for its execution in
the hands of Master van Spennen, who, as we have seen, performed his
duty like a true Hollander, and who arrested the Doctor at the very hour
when the Orange party at the Hague were roasting the bleeding shreds of
flesh torn from the corpses of Cornelius and John de Witt.
But, whether from a feeling of shame or from craven weakness, Isaac
Boxtel did not venture that day to point his telescope either at the
garden, or at the laboratory, or at the dry-room.
He knew too well what was about to happen in the house of the poor
doctor to feel any desire to look into it. He did not even get up when
his only servant--who envied the lot of the servants of Cornelius just
as bitterly as Boxtel did that of their master--entered his bedroom. He
said to the man,--
"I shall not get up to-day, I am ill."
About nine o'clock he heard a great noise in the street which made him
tremble, at this moment he was paler than a real invalid, and shook more
violently than a man in the height of fever.
His servant entered the room; Boxtel hid himself under the counterpane.
"Oh, sir!" cried the servant, not without some inkling that, whilst
deploring the mishap which had befallen Van Baerle, he was announcing
agreeable news to his master,--"oh, sir! you do not know, then, what is
happening at this moment?"
"How can I know it?" answered Boxtel, with an almost unintelligible
voice.
"Well, Mynheer Boxtel, at this moment your neighbour Cornelius van
Baerle is arrested for high treason."
"Nonsense!" Boxtel muttered, with a faltering voice; "the thing is
impossible."
"Faith, sir, at any rate that's what people say; and, besides, I have
seen Judge van Spennen with the archers entering the house."
"Well, if you have seen it with your own eyes, that's a different case
altogether."
"At all events," said the servant, "I shall go and inquire once more. Be
you quiet, sir, I shall let you know all about it."
Boxtel contented himself with signifying his approval of the zeal of his
servant by dumb show.
The man went out, and returned in half an hour.
"Oh, sir, all that I told you is indeed quite true."
"How so?"
"Mynheer van Baerle is arrested, and has been put into a carriage, and
they are driving him to the Hague."
"To the Hague!"
"Yes, to the Hague, and if what people say is true, it won't do him much
good."
"And what do they say?" Boxtel asked.
"Faith, sir, they say--but it is not quite sure--that by this hour the
burghers must be murdering Mynheer Cornelius and Mynheer John de Witt."
"Oh," muttered, or rather growled Boxtel, closing his eyes from the
dreadful picture which presented itself to his imagination.
"Why, to be sure," said the servant to himself, whilst leaving the room,
"Mynheer Isaac Boxtel must be very sick not to have jumped from his bed
on hearing such good news."
And, in reality, Isaac Boxtel was very sick, like a man who has murdered
another.
But he had murdered his man with a double object; the first was
attained, the second was still to be attained.
Night closed in. It was the night which Boxtel had looked forward to.
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.
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. _