“Do you know,” he then said, without stopping, “that those rascals have killed John de Witt as well as his brother?” “Alas! Monseigneur,” the Captain answered sadly, “I should like it much better if these two difficulties were still in your Highness’s way of becoming de facto Stadtholder of Holland.” “Certainly, it would have been better,” said William, “if what did happen had not happened. But it cannot be helped now, and we have had nothing to do with it. Let us push on, Captain, that we may arrive at Alphen before the message which the States-General are sure to send to me to the camp.” The Captain bowed, allowed the Prince to ride ahead and, for the remainder of the journey, kept at the same respectful distance as he had done before his Highness called him to his side. “How I should wish,” William of Orange malignantly muttered to himself, with a dark frown and setting the spurs to his horse, “to see the figure which Louis will cut when he is apprised of the manner in which his dear friends De Witt have been served! Oh thou Sun! thou Sun! as truly as I am called William the Silent, thou Sun, thou hadst best look to thy rays!” And the young Prince, the relentless rival of the Great King, sped away upon his fiery steed,--this future Stadtholder who had been but the day before very uncertainly established in his new power, but for whom the burghers of the Hague had built a staircase with the bodies of John and Cornelius, two princes as noble as he in the eyes of God and man. Chapter 5. The Tulip-fancier and his Neighbour Whilst the burghers of the Hague were tearing in pieces the bodies of John and Cornelius de Witt, and whilst William of Orange, after having made sure that his two antagonists were really dead, was galloping over the Leyden road, followed by Captain van Deken, whom he found a little too compassionate to honour him any longer with his confidence, Craeke, the faithful servant, mounted on a good horse, and little suspecting what terrible events had taken place since his departure, proceeded along the high road lined with trees, until he was clear of the town and the neighbouring villages.