ch 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 j