unnecessarily a life so precious. But his anxiety for his brother,
with whom he had ever lived on terms of the tenderest affection,
proved stronger than their remonstrances; and setting out on foot,
attended by his servant and two secretaries, he hastened to the
prison. On seeing him, Cornelius de Witt exclaimed in astonishment,
'My brother, what do you here?' 'Did you not then send for me?' he
asked; and receiving an answer in the negative, 'Then,' rejoined he,
'we are lost'.

"During this time one of the judges sent for Tichelaar, and suggested
to him that he should incite the people not to suffer a villain
who had intended to murder the Prince to go unpunished. True to his
instructions, the miscreant spread among the crowd collected before
the prison doors the report, that the torture inflicted on Cornelius
de Witt was a mere pretence, and that he had only escaped the death
he deserved because the judges favoured his crime. Then, entering the
gaol, he presented himself at the window, and exclaimed to the crowd
below, 'The dog and his brother are going out of prison! Now is your
time; revenge yourselves on these two knaves, and then on thirty more,
their accomplices.'

"The populace received his address with shouts and cries of 'To arms,
to arms! Treason, treason!' and pressed in a still denser crowd towards
the prison door. The States of Holland, immediately on information of
the tumult, sent three troops of cavalry, in garrison at the Hague,
for the protection of the gaol, and called out to arms six companies
of burgher guards. But in the latter they only added fresh hosts to
the enemies of the unfortunate captives. One company in especial,
called the 'Company of the Blue Flag,' was animated with a spirit of
deadly vengeance against them; its leader, Verhoef, having that morning