e from prison.

The judge summed up with the following dilemma:--

"Either Cornelius van Baerle is a great lover of tulips, or a great
lover of politics; in either case, he has told us a falsehood; first,
because his having occupied himself with politics is proved by the
letters which were found at his house; and secondly, because his having
occupied himself with tulips is proved by the bulbs which leave no doubt
of the fact. And herein lies the enormity of the case. As Cornelius
van Baerle was concerned in the growing of tulips and in the pursuit of
politics at one and the same time, the prisoner is of hybrid character,
of an amphibious organisation, working with equal ardour at politics and
at tulips, which proves him to belong to the class of men most dangerous
to public tranquillity, and shows a certain, or rather a complete,
analogy between his character and that of those master minds of which
Tarquin the Elder and the Great Conde have been felicitously quoted as
examples."

The upshot of all these reasonings was, that his Highness the Prince
Stadtholder of Holland would feel infinitely obliged to the magistracy
of the Hague if they simplified for him the government of the Seven
Provinces by destroying even the least germ of conspiracy against his
authority.

This argument capped all the others, and, in order so much the more
effectually to destroy the germ of conspiracy, sentence of death was
unanimously pronounced against Cornelius van Baerle, as being
arraigned, and convicted, for having, under the innocent appearance of
a tulip-fancier, participated in the detestable intrigues and abominable
plots of the brothers De Witt against Dutch nationality and in their
secret relations with their French enemy.

A supplementary clause was tacked to the sentence, to the effect that
"the aforesaid Cornelius van Baerle should be led from the prison of the
Buytenhof to the scaffold in the yard of the same name, where the public
executioner would cut off his head."

As this deliberation was a most serious affair, it lasted a full
half-hour, during which the prisoner was remanded to his cell.

There the Recorder of the States came to read the sentence to him.

Master Gryphus was detained in bed by the fever caused by the fracture
of his arm. His keys passed into the hands of one of his assistants.
Behind this turnkey, who introduced the Recorder, Rosa, the fair Frisian
maid, had slipped into the recess of the door, wit