Batavia (55 page)

From deep within his hole aboard the
Sardam
, the malevolent Rosicrucian can hear his countrymen’s cries for his life across the small stretch of water. And, even more chilling, from the direction of Seals’ Island – the only island in the area with enough soil sufficiently deep to build three gallows side by side – comes the regular drumbeat of approaching death, the sound of the eager knocking of hammers driving nails hard into the wood as if into his very skin.

That evening, returned to the
Sardam
, Pelsaert descends to the forward bowels of the yacht to inspect his number-one prisoner. It takes Pelsaert some time for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but presently he is able to see at the back of the hole a silent rat-like figure staring back at him. Even more unnerving, however, is the unbearable stench coming from this prison. Pelsaert instinctively covers his nose with a silk handkerchief.

‘Well, when will you have me killed?’ demands the ‘
Kapitein-Generaal
’ of his legitimate counterpart.

After a pause, Pelsaert decides to tell him. His last day on the earth will be the day after the morrow, Monday 1 October.

Jeronimus Cornelisz reacts with rage. ‘
Nothing more?
How can one show repentance in so few days? I thought I should be allowed eight or 14 days! Well, you and them all want my blood and my life, but God will not suffer that I shall die a shameful death. I know for certain, and you will all see it, that
God will perform unto me this night a miracle
, so that I shall not be hanged.’

Forewarned, upon leaving, Pelsaert orders the guard that no one should be allowed close enough to hand the prisoner a knife or anything else with which he could harm himself. However, unbeknown to the
Commandeur
, Jeronimus has secreted a vial of poison on his person, a soupçon of
Mercurium sublimatum
, the same poison that he used to try to kill the daughter of Mayken Cardoes. In the darkness, he removes the vial from beneath his tunic and, with a rush and a cry, downs the poison in one gulp.

The result is not as he planned.

About one o’clock in the morning, Jeronimus is doubled over with pain as green vomit projects at regular intervals from one end, even as a watery brown paste further sullies t’other. Twenty times and more, he is assisted from his cell as the poison takes effect, in Pelsaert’s delicate words, ‘
from below as well as from above
’.

Groaning, realising he is not going to die after all, Jeronimus asks for some Venetian
theriac
– a mix of opium, sugar and other soothing products. Once it is delivered, it brings some relief.

Just as a dose of this poison failed to forever silence the baby, it has only made this man cry like one.

30 September 1629, Batavia’s Graveyard

It is 9 am, and on the eastern shore of the desolate island, on the lee side of a large piece of sail that has been set up to give them some shelter from the wind, the
Predikant
is about to begin his service. The services have been mercifully resumed from the moment of the arrival of the
Sardam
, yet Pelsaert now realises that the congregation is missing someone who is clearly most in need of God’s salvation through baptism.

With a nod to two particularly burly sailors, Jeronimus is sent for, but within minutes they are back, with a message from the evil one.
He refuses to come
and will not have anything to do with talk of the Lord, or with the
Predikant
.

Pelsaert nods with no little satisfaction. See how miraculously the Lord has had Jeronimus again reveal his godlessness before all the people. If there be a remaining scintilla of doubt as to the man’s pure evil, then surely this final infamy from him has shredded it. Pelsaert in turn nods to the
Predikant
, who begins.

‘Oh, dearly beloved Lord, Father of us all, we, your children, are gathered here to worship Your infinite wisdom and grace . . .’

And yet there are still more messages to come from Jeronimus, each more evil than the last. Finally realising any further attempts to postpone his death are an utter waste of his time, Jeronimus gives full vent to his true feelings. Don’t you see, Commandeur, all he has done was sent into his heart by a God perfect in virtue and justice and so by corollary his actions have only been virtuous and just?

None of it makes any impression on Pelsaert, who merely notes it all down as further proof of Jeronimus’s lack of a soul. He is ever more impatient for the proper punishment to be meted out to this gruesome, murderously misguided man.

1 October 1629, Batavia’s Graveyard

Alas, on the day marked for this punishment, Monday 1 October 1629, the wind blows sou’ by sou’-west with such force and with such great stormy showers that it is not possible in the morning to go to Seals’ Island and deliver Jeronimus and the other evil-doers unto death according to their sentences. Throughout the early afternoon, the entire encampment waits tensely for a break in the weather, to determine if today is the day they must die – with none scanning the skies more intently than the condemned men themselves – but by late afternoon it is clear they will be allowed to live for at least another day.

2 October 1629, Seals’ Island

At last, the day has come. On this morning, the wind is still blustering from the west, and yet it is quieter than the day before and it looks as if it will be possible to get the eight bound prisoners on longboats and take them to Seals’ Island, where the gallows loom large across the water.

Though the wind remains gusty, and the waves gutsy, the trip across the deepwater channel does not take long. Together, the two boats bringing this gallows party to its destination nudge the shore with a small crunch of coral.

As the heavily manacled Jeronimus comes ashore, guarded closely by Wiebbe Hayes and Otto Smit, his way is suddenly blocked by an unexpected apparition. It is Lucretia, who has gone to Seals’ Island in advance with a boatload of Survivors who insist on witnessing proceedings. She is pale, thin and seems fragile in the buffeting wind.

‘Say it,’ she says to Jeronimus straight out. ‘
Say it before these witnesses
what you know to be the truth, that never was I with you in your tent willingly but that I was forced to submit to your hideousness by both you and your criminals.’

Jeronimus stares back, momentarily softened at her sudden appearance yet startled at the force of his love’s words. Before, she may have wept, shied away, been totally cold, but never to this point has he seen such
fury
, such passion in her. He gazes at her beauty in odd wonderment, as though he thinks he might have met her a long time ago but can’t remember where . . . before his eyes look over her head and he focuses, seemingly for the first time, on the gallows in the near distance.

‘Say it!’ she shouts, snapping him back to attention.

Those gathered tightly around Jeronimus are equally startled. Though her intervention has delayed the prisoners’ procession, none of them makes a move to hurry Jeronimus along. Instinctively, all feel that this is not something that can be rushed.

Still Jeronimus has not spoken.

‘Say it, sir, I demand of you, if you have a single shred of anything that is decent within the corruption of your soul. Say it and confirm the truth, before you depart to rot in that hell of your own making. Say it!’

Jeronimus stirs, first bows, then lifts his head before staring her right in the eyes. Finally, he replies, ‘It is true, you are not to blame for it, for
you were in my tent for 12 days
before I could succeed
.’

Jeronimus is the first to be led to the base of the gallows, as Pelsaert has acceded to the request of the other Mutineers that they be able to see this ‘
seducer of men
’ put to death not only to give them their last pleasurable sight on earth but also to ensure that it is so.

And now the defiant
Onderkoopman
, his eyes bitter beacons of hate as he stares out at the gathered company, is forced to kneel before his fellow condemned, wincing as his bare knees come into contact with the sharp shards of coral. How the crowd of Mutineers standing in a death row caterwaul against the
Onderkoopman
. ‘Revenge! Revenge!’ they hiss as one.

‘Revenge! Revenge!’ taunts Jeronimus back at them, unrepentant to the last.

And now his bound hands are placed before him atop a stump, as a burly sailor from the
Sardam
grips both his shoulders to prevent him from moving. Commandeur Pelsaert steps forward and brings the full weight of the Company to bear on the proceedings. ‘Jeronimus Cornelisz,’ he intones, ‘you have been found guilty of murder. It is the decision of this council that you shall have both your hands severed, and then you shall be hanged by the neck until
dead
.’

The last word hangs there, the only word in his entire utterance that he gives any emphasis to, but it is the word that is the driving force for the whole scene.

Dead.

The
Predikant
now attends Jeronimus Cornelisz closely, in the expectation that he will have a last statement to make. However, the
Onderkoopman
flicks his head in a manner to shoo him away. He has never had any patience for any of the
Predikant’s
ludicrous beliefs – excepting of course when he wanted to be baptised as a delaying tactic – and certainly doesn’t intend to start now. Stunned at such enduring denial of the Lord, even as Jeronimus’s end is approaching, the
Predikant
stumbles back, almost as if he has been stung.

And now Pelsaert nods to another hefty sailor from the
Sardam
, who has been chosen to do the honours, before stepping well back himself for fear of his brocaded uniform being covered in spurting blood.

Jeronimus keeps his eyes wide open, not resiling from witnessing his own bit of horror that is about to come to pass. At this point, the sailor steps forward and places a massive chisel upon Jeronimus’s right wrist, before lifting an even bigger hammer high above his head.

He is ready.

He looks to the
Commandeur
for the final order.

Pelsaert again nods his head.

First lifting the suspended hammer a couple of inches higher, the sailor now brings it down with a resounding bang, instantly followed by the crunching sound of bone and sinew split asunder.

The
Onderkoopman’s
hand – almost as if it is overjoyed to at long last be free of the monster that has so long commanded it – flies a good two yards forward in a wild stream of blood burst forth from the butchered stump. Jeronimus pauses a moment to look over at his single, severed hand . . . and screams. In short order, the same process is applied to his left hand, before it, too, goes tumbling off into liberation.

And now things move quickly. From long experience, the Dutch know that in situations such as this it is very important that the man being executed be quickly ushered towards the noose, lest he die from loss of blood in the meantime. Three strong men now step forward, pull Jeronimus to his feet and lead him to the gallows, where the loop of a strong rope is put around his neck, before the other end is thrown over one of the three scaffolds – the first solid European structures ever built in what would become known as Australia.

All is in readiness. With one sailor climbing and holding the
Onderkoopman
firmly by the collar, Jeronimus is hauled up to the top of the wide ladder – capable of holding two men on the same rung – even as the bloody stumps of his hands continue to gush. The other end of the rope is now secured to a post that has been dug into the ground for this very purpose. The sailor atop the ladder holding Jeronimus again looks to Pelsaert, who now gives an all but imperceptible nod.

‘Wait!’ demands Jeronimus, for all the world as if he has some authority in the matter, though still appearing composed. ‘I challenge you all, all of you as well as the council before God. I will receive justice only then because I have not been able to receive it here on earth. Reve–’

Having heard enough, with a rough push of a knee in the back, the sailor shoves Jeronimus into empty space, and his last word is a strangled ‘Revenge!’ before the rope finally tightens around his neck to the point where he can no longer speak.

The fall from the ladder has not been enough to snap his neck, meaning that his death is relatively slow and tortured. Strange guttural sounds come from him as he tries to suck air that won’t come. His body shakes, his legs twitch and it goes on for minutes as all stare mute, mesmerised by the spectacle, quietly exhilarated. One of the Mutineers, Mattys Beer, faints at the prospect of what awaits him in just a few minutes. At last, Jeronimus twitches no more, and his whole body simply twists in the wind, slowly spinning in exact rhythm to that of his life unwinding.

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