“They will not let Mynheer John escape,” the girl sobbed, shivering. “Some of them are searching the houses next door to see if there should be any secret passage, and there has one climbed on to the roof with a gun—if you try to escape.”
“We have no thought of it,” said Cornelius proudly.
The maid gave him a wild look and hurried out of the room.
The brothers avoided each other’s glance. John surveyed the window, stoutly barred, the iron-clamped door giving on to the narrow corridor … certainly they were in a trap.…
He set the meal himself on the smooth polished table, and his thoughts were in his home on the Kneuterdyk. He pictured Johanna’s piteous preparations for their return; her anxious arrangement for dinner—which was standing now untouched in the dining-room—her setting out of travelling garments for Cornelius; their old father, happy again at the thought of his son’s release; the doves in the trees and the girls in their pale dresses.…
What bitterness were they enduring as the time went on and the threatening crowd spread between them and the prison?
These little trifling recollections were the keenest stabs in the wounded heart of John de Witt.… Not the thought of his useless life-work, not the vision of approaching death were as potent to lacerate his soul as the thought of those waiting in vain … in vain.
Cornelius spoke—
“How is our father of late?”
John did not look at him as he answered—