bodies to an extemporised gibbet, where amateur executioners
hung them up by the feet.

Then came the most dastardly scoundrels of all, who not
having dared to strike the living flesh, cut the dead in
pieces, and then went about the town selling small slices of
the bodies of John and Cornelius at ten sous a piece.

We cannot take upon ourselves to say whether, through the
almost imperceptible chink of the shutter, the young man
witnessed the conclusion of this shocking scene; but at the
very moment when they were hanging the two martyrs on the
gibbet he passed through the terrible mob, which was too
much absorbed in the task, so grateful to its taste, to take
any notice of him, and thus he reached unobserved the
Tol-Hek, which was still closed.

"Ah! sir," said the gatekeeper, "do you bring me the key?"

"Yes, my man, here it is."

"It is most unfortunate that you did not bring me that key
only one quarter of an hour sooner," said the gatekeeper,
with a sigh.

"And why that?" asked the other.

"Because I might have opened the gate to Mynheers de Witt;
whereas, finding the gate locked, they were obliged to
retrace their steps."