Chapter 12  The Execution

 Cornelius had not three hundred paces to walk outside the  prison to reach the foot of the scaffold. At the bottom of  the staircase, the dog quietly looked at him whilst he was  passing; Cornelius even fancied he saw in the eyes of the  monster a certain expression as it were of compassion.

The dog perhaps knew the condemned prisoners, and only bit  those who left as free men.

The shorter the way from the door of the prison to the foot  of the scaffold, the more fully, of course, it was crowded  with curious people.

These were the same who, not satisfied with the blood which  they had shed three days before, were now craving for a new  victim.

And scarcely had Cornelius made his appearance than a fierce  groan ran through the whole street, spreading all over the  yard, and re-echoing from the streets which led to the  scaffold, and which were likewise crowded with spectators.

The scaffold indeed looked like an islet at the confluence  of several rivers.

In the midst of these threats, groans, and yells, Cornelius,  very likely in order not to hear them, had buried himself in  his own thoughts.

And what did he think of in his last melancholy journey?

Neither of his enemies, nor of his judges, nor of his  executioners.

He thought of the beautiful tulips which he would see from  heaven above, at Ceylon, or Bengal, or elsewhere, when he  would be able to look with pity on this earth, where John  and Cornelius de Witt had been murdered for having thought  too much of politics, and where Cornelius van Baerle was  about to be murdered for having thought too much of tulips.

"It is only one stroke of the axe," said the philosopher to  himself,"and my beautiful dream will begin to be realised."

Only there was still a chance, just as it had happened  before to M. de Chalais, to M. de Thou, and other slovenly  executed people, that the headsman might inflict more than  one