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Updated: June 11, 2025
The boatman placed himself entirely at her disposal, promising to keep pace with the horse if Rosa would allow him to take hold of either the croup or the bridle of her horse. The two travellers had been on their way for five hours, and made more than eight leagues, and yet Gryphus had not the least suspicion of his daughter having left the fortress.
Whilst the events we have described in our last chapter were taking place, the unfortunate Van Baerle, forgotten in his cell in the fortress of Loewestein, suffered at the hands of Gryphus all that a prisoner can suffer when his jailer has formed the determination of playing the part of hangman.
"My father might grow impatient not seeing me return, and that precious lover might suspect a rival." Here she listened uneasily. "What is it?" asked Van Baerle. "I thought I heard something." "What, then?" "Something like a step, creaking on the staircase." "Surely," said the prisoner, "that cannot be Master Gryphus, he is always heard at a distance."
Gryphus, perceiving an unknown and consequently a forbidden object in the hands of his prisoner, pounced upon it with the same rapidity as the hawk on its prey. As ill luck would have it, his coarse, hard hand, the same which he had broken, and which Cornelius van Baerle had set so well, grasped at once in the midst of the jug, on the spot where the bulb was lying in the soil.
Cornelius uttered a cry of horror, and in the agony of his frantic terror knocked with his hands and feet at the door so violently and continuously, that Gryphus, with his huge bunch of keys in his hand, ran furiously up. The jailer opened the door, with terrible imprecations against the prisoner who disturbed him at an hour which Master Gryphus was not accustomed to be aroused.
A protocol of the violence practiced by the prisoner against his jailer was immediately drawn up, and as it was made on the depositions of Gryphus, it certainly could not be said to be too tame; the prisoner being charged with neither more nor less than with an attempt to murder, for a long time premeditated, with open rebellion.
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, with a handkerchief to her mouth to stifle her sobs.
"You forget that one of those unfortunate gentlemen was my friend, and the other my second father." "Yes, but I also remember that the one, as well as the other, was a conspirator. And, moreover, I am speaking from Christian charity." "Oh, indeed! explain that a little to me, my good Master Gryphus. I do not quite understand it." "Well, then, if you had remained on the block of Master Harbruck "
And, as he now for the first time observed the frenzied features, the flashing eyes, and foaming mouth of the old jailer, he said, "Bless the man, he is more than mad, he is furious." Gryphus flourished his stick above his head, but Van Baerle moved not, and remained standing with his arms akimbo. "It seems your intention to threaten me, Master Gryphus."
Rosa had scarcely pronounced these consolatory words when a voice was heard from the staircase asking Gryphus how matters were going on. "Do you hear, father?" said Rosa. "What?" "Master Jacob calls you, he is uneasy." "There was such a noise," said Gryphus; "wouldn't you have thought he would murder me, this doctor? They are always very troublesome fellows, these scholars."
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