Pere Alexandre Dumas

The Black Tulip Pere Alexandre Dumas

Book Excerpt: ...iercer and fiercer about the Buytenhof. And yet the fuming crowd did not know that, at that very moment when they were tracking the scent of one of their victims, the other, as if hurrying to meet his fate, passed, at a distance of not more than a hundred yards, behind the groups of people and the dragoons, to betake himself to the Buytenhof. John de Witt, indeed, had alighted from his coach with his servant, and quietly walked across the courtyard of the prison. Mentioning his name to the turnkey, who however knew him, he said, --"Good morning, Gryphus; I am coming to take away my brother, who, as you know, is condemned to exile, and to carry him out of the town."Whereupon the jailer, a sort of bear, trained to lock and unlock the gates of the prison, had greeted him and admitted him into the building, the doors of which were immediately closed again. Ten yards farther on, John de Witt met a lovely young girl, of about seventeen or eighteen, dressed in the national...