Vlieland, who with a party of followers made a strict search through his
narrow precincts. A group of seamen seated on the sands was soon
discovered, among whom, dressed in shaggy pea jacket with long
fisherman's boots, was the Seigneur de Groeneveld, who, easily recognized
through his disguise, submitted to his captors without a struggle. The
Scheveningen fisherman, who had been so faithful to him, making a sudden
spring, eluded his pursuers and disappeared; thus escaping the gibbet
which would probably have been his doom instead of the reward of 4000
golden guilders which he might have had for betraying him. Thus a
sum more than double the amount originally furnished by Groeneveld,
as the capital of the assassination company, had been rejected by the
Rotterdam boatman who saved Stoutenburg, and by the Scheveningen
fisherman who was ready to save Groeneveld. On the 19th February, within
less than a fortnight from the explosion of the conspiracy, the eldest
son of Barneveld was lodged in the Gevangen Poort or state prison of the
Hague.

The awful news of the 6th February had struck the widow of Barneveld as
with a thunderbolt. Both her sons were proclaimed as murderers and
suborners of assassins, and a price put upon their heads. She remained
for days neither speaking nor weeping; scarcely eating, drinking, or
sleeping. She seemed frozen to stone. Her daughters and friends could
not tell whether she were dying or had lost her reason. At length the
escape of Stoutenburg and the capture of Groeneveld seemed to rouse her
from her trance. She then stooped to do what she had sternly refused to
do when her husband was in the hands of the authorities. Accompanied by
the wife and infant son of Groeneveld she obtained an audience of the
stern Stadholder, fell on her knees before him, and implored mercy and
pardon for her son.