e admittance to the populace.

The dungeon where Rosa had induced her father to hide himself, and where
for the present we must leave the two, offered to them a perfectly safe
retreat, being known only to those in power, who used to place there
important prisoners of state, to guard against a rescue or a revolt.

The people rushed into the prison, with the cry--

"Death to the traitors! To the gallows with Cornelius de Witt! Death!
death!"

Chapter 4. The Murderers

The young man with his hat slouched over his eyes, still leaning on the
arm of the officer, and still wiping from time to time his brow with his
handkerchief, was watching in a corner of the Buytenhof, in the shade
of the overhanging weather-board of a closed shop, the doings of the
infuriated mob, a spectacle which seemed to draw near its catastrophe.

"Indeed," said he to the officer, "indeed, I think you were right,
Van Deken; the order which the deputies have signed is truly the
death-warrant of Master Cornelius. Do you hear these people? They
certainly bear a sad grudge to the two De Witts."

"In truth," replied the officer, "I never heard such shouts."

"They seem to have found out the cell of the man. Look, look! is not
that the window of the cell where Cornelius was locked up?"

A man had seized with both hands and was shaking the iron bars of the
window in the room which Cornelius had left only ten minutes before.

"Halloa, halloa!" the man called out, "he is gone."

"How is that? gone?" asked those of the mob who had not been able to get
into the prison, crowded as it was with the mass of intruders.

"Gone, gone," repeated the man in a rage, "the bird has flown."

"What does this man say?" asked his Highness, growing quite pale.

"Oh, Monseigneur, he says a thing which would be very fortunate if it
should turn out true!"

"Certainly it would be fortunate if it were true," said the young man;
"unfortunately it cannot be true."

"However, look!" said the officer.

And indeed, some more faces, furious and contorted with rage, showed
themselves at the windows, crying,--

"Escaped, gone, they have helped them off!"

And the people in the street repeated, with fearful imprecations,--

"Escaped gone! After them, and catch them!"

"Monseigneur, it seems that Mynheer Cornelius has really escaped," said
the officer.

"Yes, from prison, perhaps, but not from the town; you will see, Van
Deken, that the poor fellow will find th