The Black Tulip Part 14

In fact, Gryphus was beginning to dig the soil with his crooked fingers.

"Take care, sir, take care," said Cornelius, growing quite pale.

"Care of what? Zounds! of what?" roared the jailer.

"Take care, I say, you will crush it, Master Gryphus."

And with a rapid and almost frantic movement he s.n.a.t.c.hed the jug from the hands of Gryphus, and hid it like a treasure under his arms.

But Gryphus, obstinate, like an old man, and more and more convinced that he was discovering here a conspiracy against the Prince of Orange, rushed up to his prisoner, raising his stick; seeing, however, the impa.s.sible resolution of the captive to protect his flower-pot he was convinced that Cornelius trembled much less for his head than for his jug.

He therefore tried to wrest it from him by force.

"Halloa!" said the jailer, furious, "here, you see, you are rebelling."

"Leave me my tulip," cried Van Baerle.

"Ah, yes, tulip," replied the old man, "we know well the s.h.i.+fts of prisoners."

"But I vow to you ---- "

"Let go," repeated Gryphus, stamping his foot, "let go, or I shall call the guard."

"Call whoever you like, but you shall not have this flower except with my life."

Gryphus, exasperated, plunged his finger a second time into the soil, and now he drew out the bulb, which certainly looked quite black; and whilst Van Baerle, quite happy to have saved the vessel, did not suspect that the adversary had possessed himself of its precious contents, Gryphus hurled the softened bulb with all his force on the flags, where almost immediately after it was crushed to atoms under his heavy shoe.

Van Baerle saw the work of destruction, got a glimpse of the juicy remains of his darling bulb, and, guessing the cause of the ferocious joy of Gryphus, uttered a cry of agony, which would have melted the heart even of that ruthless jailer who some years before killed Pelisson's spider.

The idea of striking down this spiteful bully pa.s.sed like lightning through the brain of the tulip-fancier. The blood rushed to his brow, and seemed like fire in his eyes, which blinded him, and he raised in his two hands the heavy jug with all the now useless earth which remained in it. One instant more, and he would have flung it on the bald head of old Gryphus.

But a cry stopped him; a cry of agony, uttered by poor Rosa, who, trembling and pale, with her arms raised to heaven, made her appearance behind the grated window, and thus interposed between her father and her friend.

Gryphus then understood the danger with which he had been threatened, and he broke out in a volley of the most terrible abuse.

"Indeed," said Cornelius to him, "you must be a very mean and spiteful fellow to rob a poor prisoner of his only consolation, a tulip bulb."

"For shame, my father," Rosa chimed in, "it is indeed a crime you have committed here."

"Ah, is that you, my little chatter-box?" the old man cried, boiling with rage and turning towards her; "don't you meddle with what don't concern you, but go down as quickly as possible."

"Unfortunate me," continued Cornelius, overwhelmed with grief.

"After all, it is but a tulip," Gryphus resumed, as he began to be a little ashamed of himself. "You may have as many tulips as you like: I have three hundred of them in my loft."

"To the devil with your tulips!" cried Cornelius; "you are worthy of each other: had I a hundred thousand millions of them, I would gladly give them for the one which you have just destroyed."

"Oh, so!" Gryphus said, in a tone of triumph; "now there we have it. It was not your tulip you cared for. There was in that false bulb some witchcraft, perhaps some means of correspondence with conspirators against his Highness who has granted you your life. I always said they were wrong in not cutting your head off."

"Father, father!" cried Rosa.

"Yes, yes! it is better as it is now," repeated Gryphus, growing warm; "I have destroyed it, and I'll do the same again, as often as you repeat the trick. Didn't I tell you, my fine fellow, that I would make your life a hard one?"

"A curse on you!" Cornelius exclaimed, quite beyond himself with despair, as he gathered, with his trembling fingers, the remnants of that bulb on which he had rested so many joys and so many hopes.

"We shall plant the other to-morrow, my dear Mynheer Cornelius," said Rosa, in a low voice, who understood the intense grief of the unfortunate tulip-fancier, and who, with the pure sacred love of her innocent heart, poured these kind words, like a drop of balm, on the bleeding wounds of Cornelius.

Chapter 18.

Rosa's Lover.

Rosa had scarcely p.r.o.nounced these consolatory words when a voice was heard from the staircase asking Gryphus how matters were going on.

"Do you hear, father?" said Rosa.

"What?"

"Master Jacob calls you, he is uneasy."

"There was such a noise," said Gryphus; "wouldn't you have thought he would murder me, this doctor? They are always very troublesome fellows, these scholars."

Then, pointing with his finger towards the staircase, he said to Rosa: "Just lead the way, Miss."

After this he locked the door and called out: "I shall be with you directly, friend Jacob."

Poor Cornelius, thus left alone with his bitter grief, muttered to himself, -- "Ah, you old hangman! it is me you have trodden under foot; you have murdered me; I shall not survive it."

And certainly the unfortunate prisoner would have fallen ill but for the counterpoise which Providence had granted to his grief, and which was called Rosa.

In the evening she came back. Her first words announced to Cornelius that henceforth her father would make no objection to his cultivating flowers.

"And how do you know that?" the prisoner asked, with a doleful look.

"I know it because he has said so."

"To deceive me, perhaps."

"No, he repents."

"Ah yes! but too late."

"This repentance is not of himself."

"And who put it into him?"

"If you only knew how his friend scolded him!"

"Ah, Master Jacob; he does not leave you, then, that Master Jacob?"

"At any rate, he leaves us as little as he can help."

Saying this, she smiled in such a way that the little cloud of jealousy which had darkened the brow of Cornelius speedily vanished.

"How was it?" asked the prisoner.

"Well, being asked by his friend, my father told at supper the whole story of the tulip, or rather of the bulb, and of his own fine exploit of crus.h.i.+ng it."

Cornelius heaved a sigh, which might have been called a groan.

"Had you only seen Master Jacob at that moment!" continued Rosa. "I really thought he would set fire to the castle; his eyes were like two flaming torches, his hair stood on end, and he clinched his fist for a moment; I thought he would have strangled my father."

"'You have done that,' he cried, 'you have crushed the bulb?'

"'Indeed I have.'

"'It is infamous,' said Master Jacob, 'it is odious! You have committed a great crime!'

"My father was quite dumbfounded.

"'Are you mad, too?' he asked his friend."

"Oh, what a worthy man is this Master Jacob!" muttered Cornelius, -- "an honest soul, an excellent heart that he is."

"The truth is, that it is impossible to treat a man more rudely than he did my father; he was really quite in despair, repeating over and over again, -- "'Crushed, crushed the bulb! my G.o.d, my G.o.d! crushed!'

"Then, turning toward me, he asked, 'But it was not the only one that he had?'"

"Did he ask that?" inquired Cornelius, with some anxiety.

"'You think it was not the only one?' said my father. 'Very well, we shall search for the others.'

"'You will search for the others?' cried Jacob, taking my father by the collar; but he immediately loosed him. Then, turning towards me, he continued, asking 'And what did that poor young man say?'

"I did not know what to answer, as you had so strictly enjoined me never to allow any one to guess the interest which you are taking in the bulb. Fortunately, my father saved me from the difficulty by chiming in, -- "'What did he say? Didn't he fume and fret?'

"I interrupted him, saying, 'Was it not natural that be should be furious, you were so unjust and brutal, father?'

"'Well, now, are you mad?' cried my father; 'what immense misfortune is it to crush a tulip bulb? You may buy a hundred of them in the market of Gorc.u.m.'

"'Perhaps some less precious one than that was!' I quite incautiously replied."

"And what did Jacob say or do at these words?" asked Cornelius.

"At these words, if I must say it, his eyes seemed to flash like lightning."

"But," said Cornelius, "that was not all; I am sure he said something in his turn."

"'So, then, my pretty Rosa,' he said, with a voice as sweet a honey, -- 'so you think that bulb to have been a precious one?'

"I saw that I had made a blunder.

"'What do I know?' I said, negligently; 'do I understand anything of tulips? I only know -- as unfortunately it is our lot to live with prisoners -- that for them any pastime is of value. This poor Mynheer van Baerle amused himself with this bulb. Well, I think it very cruel to take from him the only thing that he could have amused himself with.'

"'But, first of all,' said my father, 'we ought to know how he has contrived to procure this bulb.'

"I turned my eyes away to avoid my father's look; but I met those of Jacob.

"It was as if he had tried to read my thoughts at the bottom of my heart.

"Some little show of anger sometimes saves an answer. I shrugged my shoulders, turned my back, and advanced towards the door.

"But I was kept by something which I heard, although it was uttered in a very low voice only.

"Jacob said to my father, -- "'It would not be so difficult to ascertain that.'

"'How so?'

"'You need only search his person: and if he has the other bulbs, we shall find them, as there usually are three suckers!'"

"Three suckers!" cried Cornelius. "Did you say that I have three?"

"The word certainly struck me just as much as it does you. I turned round. They were both of them so deeply engaged in their conversation that they did not observe my movement.

"'But,' said my father, 'perhaps he has not got his bulbs about him?'

"'Then take him down, under some pretext or other and I will search his cell in the meanwhile.'"

"Halloa, halloa!" said Cornelius. "But this Mr. Jacob of yours is a villain, it seems."

"I am afraid he is."

"Tell me, Rosa," continued Cornelius, with a pensive air.

"What?"

"Did you not tell me that on the day when you prepared your borders this man followed you?"

"So he did."

"That he glided like a shadow behind the elder trees?"