“Yes—he can do anything with the men.”
“What did he say?”
“Not much—he spoke stiffly I thought, and proudly.”
“Sincerity needs no arts,” murmured Beverningh.
They had water, but M. Beverningh was against William Bentinck’s suggestion of bathing the Prince’s forehead; it increased the fever he said.
M. de Zuylestein was for bleeding him, but since they had no lancet that also was abandoned.
One of the candles burnt down, and they could find no other, so had to manage by the dismal light of one.
“If he takes the fever,” said M. Beverningh, “we are truly undone.”
M. Bentinck had found a withered brown shell of a rose inside William’s waistcoat.
“He has his sentiments,” he remarked, “although he guards them fiercely—he picked this from the tree his mother, the Princess Royal, planted, the last time he was at the ‘Huis ten bosch.’”