These new-comers evidently meant mischief with regard to the carriage.
When they saw the horses galloping down upon them, they placed themselves across the street, brandishing cudgels in their hands, and calling out,—
“Stop! stop!”
The coachman, on his side, lashed his horses into increased speed, until the coach and the men encountered.
The brothers De Witte, enclosed within the body of the carriage, were not able to see anything; but they felt a severe shock, occasioned by the rearing of the horses. The whole vehicle for a moment shook and stopped; but immediately after, passing over something round and elastic, which seemed to be the body of a prostrate man set off again amidst a volley of the fiercest oaths.
“Alas!” said Cornelius, “I am afraid we have hurt some one.”
“Gallop! gallop!” called John.
But, notwithstanding this order, the coachman suddenly came to a stop.
“Now, then, what is the matter again?” asked John.
“Look there!” said the coachman.
John looked. The whole mass of the populace from the Buytenhof appeared at the extremity of the street along which the carriage was to proceed, and its stream moved roaring and rapid, as if lashed on by a hurricane.
“Stop and get off,” said John to the coachman; “it is useless to go any farther; we are lost!”
“Here they are! here they are!” five hundred voices were crying at the same time.
“Yes, here they are, the traitors, the murderers, the assassins!” answered the men who were running after the carriage to the people who were coming to meet it.
