to
the conclusion that the parcel contained simply some papers, and that
these papers were relating to politics.

But why should papers of political import be intrusted to Van Baerle,
who not only was, but also boasted of being, an entire stranger to
the science of government, which, in his opinion, was more occult than
alchemy itself?

It was undoubtedly a deposit which Cornelius de Witt, already threatened
by the unpopularity with which his countrymen were going to honour him,
was placing in the hands of his godson; a contrivance so much the more
cleverly devised, as it certainly was not at all likely that it should
be searched for at the house of one who had always stood aloof from
every sort of intrigue.

And, besides, if the parcel had been made up of bulbs, Boxtel knew his
neighbour too well not to expect that Van Baerle would not have lost one
moment in satisfying his curiosity and feasting his eyes on the present
which he had received.

But, on the contrary, Cornelius had received the parcel from the hands
of his godfather with every mark of respect, and put it by with the same
respectful manner in a drawer, stowing it away so that it should not
take up too much of the room which was reserved to his bulbs.

The parcel thus being secreted, Cornelius de Witt got up, pressed the
hand of his godson, and turned towards the door, Van Baerle seizing the
candlestick, and lighting him on his way down to the street, which was
still crowded with people who wished to see their great fellow citizen
getting into his coach.

Boxtel had not been mistaken in his supposition. The deposit intrusted
to Van Baerle, and carefully locked up by him, was nothing more nor less
than John de Witt's correspondence with the Marquis de Louvois, the war
minister of the King of France; only the godfather forbore giving to his
godson the least intimation concerning the political importance of the
secret, merely desiring him not to deliver the parcel to any one but to
himself, or to whomsoever he should send to claim it in his name.

And Van Baerle, as we have seen, locked it up with his most precious
bulbs, to think no more of it, after his godfather had left him; very
unlike Boxtel, who looked upon this parcel as a clever pilot does on the
distant and scarcely perceptible cloud which is increasing on its way
and which is fraught with a storm.

Little dreaming of the jealous hatred of his neighbour, Van Baerle
had proceeded step by st