"When the boat reached Gorcum, the box was conveyed to the house of a friend of Grotius, of whom it was presumed that he had borrowed the books. The servant-girl told him that her master was in the box, and begged his assistance; but he was so terrified, in view of the consequences, that he refused to have anything to do with the matter. His wife, however, had more pluck in the service of a friend, and, having sent all her domestics out of the house on various errands, she opened the box, and released the philosopher from durance vile.
"Grotius, who had suffered no serious inconvenience from his confinement in the box, which was only three and a half feet long, was disguised as a mason, and, with a rule and trowel in his hand, was conducted to a boat, and sent into Belgium, where he was safe from pursuit.
"The philosopher's wife remained in the room occupied by her husband in the castle, and used every means to conceal his escape. She lighted the lamp in his room at dark, by which the governor of the prison was deceived. She was arrested and imprisoned for a short time; but when discharged, she joined her husband in Paris, whither he had gone."
"There is a frigate in the Dutch navy called the Marie van Reigersberch, named for the wife of Grotius," added the captain of the steamer, who had been an attentive listener to the story.
The steamer went but a short distance farther up the Waal, and then came about. She soon reached Dort, or Dordrecht, where she made a landing, and the students wandered for an hour through the streets of this ancient town.
"This is a musty old place," said Paul, as he walked up one of the streets with a canal in the middle of it, in company with Mr. Fluxion and the surgeon; "I shouldn't feel safe here unless I lived in a boat."
"Many of the people live in boats, as you perceive," added Mr. Fluxion, as he pointed to a gayly-painted craft, on the deck of which was a group of children.
At the little window in the stern sat a woman, sewing, while another was knitting near the cabin door. There were white muslin curtains at the stern ports, and what could be seen of the interior of the apartment indicated that it was kept extremely neat.
"I think I should prefer to live in something that would float, in case of accident," laughed the doctor, "especially in this part of Holland. The operation of the water is wonderful. The channel in front of Dort was formed by an inundation which separated the town from the main land, leaving it deep enough to float the largest Indiaman."
"The Leck, on which we sailed for a time after leaving Rotterdam, was a canal dug by the Romans to connect the Rhine and the Waal," added Mr. Fluxion. "A freshet cleaned it out, and tore away its banks so as to make the present broad river of it. In an inundation a few years later, seventy-two villages were swept away, and one hundred thousand people lost their lives. Thirty-five of these villages were never heard from afterwards, and not even their ruins could be found."