with his perishable frame gradually loosening, that it seemed to him as if his spirit, freed from the trammels of the body, were hovering above it, like the expiring flame which rises from the half-extinguished embers.
He also thought of his brother; and whilst the latter was thus vividly present to his mind the door opened, and John entered, hurrying to the bedside of the prisoner, who stretched out his broken limbs and his hands tied up in bandages towards that glorious brother, whom he now excelled, not in services rendered to the country, but in the hatred which the Dutch bore him.
John tenderly kissed his brother on the forehead, and put his sore hands gently back on the mattress.
“Cornelius, my poor brother, you are suffering great pain, are you not?”
“I am suffering no longer, since I see you, my brother.”
“Oh, my poor dear Cornelius! I feel most wretched to see you in such a state.”
“And, indeed, I have thought more of you than of myself; and whilst they were torturing me, I never thought of uttering a complaint, except once, to say, ‘Poor brother!’ But now that you are here, let us forget all. You are coming to take me away, are you not?”
“I am.”
“I am quite healed; help me to get up, and you shall see how I can walk.”
“You will not have to walk far, as I have my coach near the pond, behind Tilly’s dragoons.”
“Tilly’s dragoons! What are they near the pond for?”
“Well,” said the Grand Pensionary with a melancholy smile which was habitual to him, “the gentlemen
