บทที่ บทที่ 22 · Before the Court

. Before the Court

You may believe that the landlord’s daughter bestirred herself to

prepare a good meal for the boys next morning. Mynheer had a Chinese

gong that could make more noise than a dozen breakfast bells. Its

hideous reveille, clanging through the house, generally startled the

drowsiest lodgers into activity, but the maiden would not allow it to be

sounded this morning.

“Let the brave young gentlemen sleep,” she said to the greasy kitchen

boy. “They shall be warmly fed when they awaken.”

It was ten o’clock when Captain Peter and his band came straggling down

one by one.

“A pretty hour,” said mine host, gruffly. “It is high time we were

before the court. Fine business, this, for a respectable inn. You will

testify truly, young masters, that you found most excellent fare and

lodging at the Red Lion?”

“Of course we will,” answered Carl saucily, “and pleasant company, too,

though they visit at rather unseasonable hours.”

A stare and a “humph!” was all the answer mynheer made to this, but the

daughter was more communicative. Shaking her earrings at Carl, she said

sharply, “Not so very pleasant, either, master traveler, if you could

judge by the way YOU ran away from it!”

“Impertinent creature!” hissed Carl under his breath as he began busily

to examine his skate straps. Meantime the kitchen boy, listening outside

at the crack of the door, doubled himself with silent laughter.

After breakfast the boys went to the police court, accompanied by

Huygens Kleef and his daughter. Mynheer’s testimony was principally

to the effect that such a thing as a robber at the Red Lion had been

unheard of until last night, and as for the Red Lion, it was a most

respectable inn, as respectable as any house in Leyden. Each boy, in

turn, told all that he knew of the affair and identified the prisoner

in the box as the same man who entered their room in the dead of night.

Ludwig was surprised to find that the prisoner in the box was a man of

ordinary size--especially after he had described him, under oath, to the

court as a tremendous fellow with great, square shoulders and legs

of prodigious weight. Jacob swore that he was awakened by the robber

kicking and thrashing upon the floor, and immediately afterward, Peter

and the rest (feeling sorry that they had not explained the matter to

their sleepy comrade) testified that the man had not moved a muscle from

the moment the point of the dagger touched his throat, until, bound from

head to foot, he was rolled over for inspection. The landlord’s daughter

made one boy blush, and all the court smile, by declaring, “If it hadn’t

been for that handsome young gentleman there”--pointing to Peter--“they

might have all been murdered in their beds; for the dreadful man had

a great, shining knife most as long as Your Honor’s arm,” and SHE

believed, “the handsome young gentleman had struggled hard enough to get

it away from him, but he was too modest, bless him! to say so.”

Finally, after a little questioning, and cross-questioning from the

public prosecutor, the witnesses were dismissed, and the robber was

handed over to the consideration of the criminal court.

“The scoundrel!” said Carl savagely when the boys reached the street.

“He ought to be sent to jail at once. If I had been in your place,

Peter, I certainly should have killed him outright!”

“He was fortunate, then, in falling into gentler hands,” was Peter’s

quiet reply. “It appears he has been arrested before under a charge of

housebreaking. He did not succeed in robbing this time, but he broke the

door-fastenings, and that I believe constitutes a burglary in the eyes

of the law. He was armed with a knife, too, and that makes it worse for

him, poor fellow!”

“Poor fellow!” mimicked Carl. “One would think he was your brother!”

“So he is my brother, and yours too, Carl Schummel, for that matter,”

answered Peter, looking into Carl’s eye. “We cannot say what we might

have become under other circumstances. WE have been bolstered up from

evil, since the hour we were born. A happy home and good parents might

have made that man a fine fellow instead of what he is. God grant that

the law may cure and not crush him!”

“Amen to that!” said Lambert heartily while Ludwig van Holp looked at

his brother in such a bright, proud way that Jacob Poot, who was an only

son, wished from his heart that the little form buried in the old church

at home had lived to grow up beside him.

“Humph!” said Carl. “It’s all very well to be saintly and forgiving,

and all that sort of thing, but I’m naturally hard. All these fine

ideas seem to rattle off me like hailstones--and it’s nobody’s business,

either, if they do.”

Peter recognized a touch of good feeling in this clumsy concession.

Holding out his hand, he said in a frank, hearty tone, “Come, lad, shake

hands, and let us be good friends, even if we don’t exactly agree on all

questions.”

“We do agree better than you think,” sulked Carl as he returned Peter’s

grasp.

“All right,” responded Peter briskly. “Now, Van Mounen, we await

Benjamin’s wishes. Where would he like to go?”

“To the Egyptian Museum?” answered Lambert after holding a brief

consultation with Ben.

“That is on the Breedstraat. To the museum let it be. Come, boys!”