"Well, Sylla," he said very calmly, "will you in these my last moments lay down the law to me as to what I shall write to my wife?"
He then added with a half-smile, "Well, what is expected of me?"
"We have no commission whatever to lay down the law," said van Leeuwen.
"Your worship will write whatever you like."
While he was writing, Anthony Walaeus came in, a preacher and professor of Middelburg, a deputy to the Synod of Dordtrecht, a learned and amiable man, sent by the States-General to minister to the prisoner on this supreme occasion; and not unworthy to be thus selected.
The Advocate, not knowing him, asked him why he came.
"I am not here without commission," said the clergyman. "I come to console my lord in his tribulation."
"I am a man," said Barneveld; "have come to my present age, and I know how to console myself. I must write, and have now other things to do."
The preacher said that he would withdraw and return when his worship was at leisure.
"Do as you like," said the Advocate, calmly going on with his writing.
When the letter was finished, it was sent to the judges for their inspection, by whom it was at once forwarded to the family mansion in the Voorhout, hardly a stone's throw from the prison chamber.