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"I will obey," he said, "but the two brothers are lost." The troops had scarcely withdrawn, and already the doors of the prison were forced; the ruart, exhausted by the torture, was stretched upon his bed, whilst his brother sat by his side reading the Bible aloud; the madmen rushed into the chamber, crying, "Traitors, prepare yourselves; you are going to die."
"They are traitors!" cried Tichelaer, "but let us first take vengeance on those whom we have." John van Witt had been brought to the prison by a message supposed to have come from the ruart. In vain had his daughter conjured him not to respond to it. "What are you come here for?" exclaimed Cornelius, on seeing his brother enter. "Did you not send for me?" "No, certainly not."
They were both dragged forth; they embraced one another; Cornelius, struck from behind, rolled to the bottom of the staircase; his brother would have defended him; as he went out into the street, he received a pike-thrust in the face; the ruart was dead already; the murderers vented their fury on John van Witt; he had lost nothing of his courage or his coolness, and, lifting his arms towards heaven, he was opening his mouth in prayer to God, when a last pistol-shot stretched him upon his back.
Cornelius de Witt, Ruart de Pulten, that is to say, warden of the dikes, ex-burgomaster of Dort, his native town, and member of the Assembly of the States of Holland, was forty-nine years of age, when the Dutch people, tired of the Republic such as John de Witt, the Grand Pensionary of Holland, understood it, at once conceived a most violent affection for the Stadtholderate, which had been abolished for ever in Holland by the "Perpetual Edict" forced by John de Witt upon the United Provinces.
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