but they felt a severe shock, occasioned by the
rearing of the horses. The whole vehicle for a moment shook and stopped;
but immediately after, passing over something round and elastic, which
seemed to be the body of a prostrate man set off again amidst a volley
of the fiercest oaths.

"Alas!" said Cornelius, "I am afraid we have hurt some one."

"Gallop! gallop!" called John.

But, notwithstanding this order, the coachman suddenly came to a stop.

"Now, then, what is the matter again?" asked John.

"Look there!" said the coachman.

John looked. The whole mass of the populace from the Buytenhof appeared
at the extremity of the street along which the carriage was to proceed,
and its stream moved roaring and rapid, as if lashed on by a hurricane.

"Stop and get off," said John to the coachman; "it is useless to go any
farther; we are lost!"

"Here they are! here they are!" five hundred voices were crying at the
same time.

"Yes, here they are, the traitors, the murderers, the assassins!"
answered the men who were running after the carriage to the people who
were coming to meet it. The former carried in their arms the bruised
body of one of their companions, who, trying to seize the reins of the
horses, had been trodden down by them.

This was the object over which the two brothers had felt their carriage
pass.

The coachman stopped, but, however strongly his master urged him, he
refused to get off and save himself.

In an instant the carriage was hemmed in between those who followed and
those who met it. It rose above the mass of moving heads like a floating
island. But in another instant it came to a dead stop. A blacksmith had
with his hammer struck down one of the horses, which fell in the traces.

At this moment, the shutter of a window opened, and disclosed the sallow
face and the dark eyes of the young man, who with intense interest
watched the scene which was preparing. Behind him appeared the head of
the officer, almost as pale as himself.

"Good heavens, Monseigneur, what is going on there?" whispered the
officer.

"Something very terrible, to a certainty," replied the other.

"Don't you see, Monseigneur, they are dragging the Grand Pensionary from
the carriage, they strike him, they tear him to pieces!"

"Indeed, these people must certainly be prompted by a most violent
indignation," said the young marl, with the same impassible tone which
he had preserved all along.

"And here is Corneliu