The Legend of Ulenspiegel Volume Ii Part 46

"Thou art my green lord, lovely as the sun. Take away the fire, my darling!"

Nele, then speaking for Katheline, said:

"She can confess naught but what ye know already, Monseigneur and Messieurs; she is no witch, and only bereft of her wits."

The bailiff then spoke and said:

"A sorcerer is one that, by diabolical means wittingly employed, endeavours to attain somewhat. Now, these twain, man and woman, are sorcerers by intent and deed: he, in having given the ointment for the sabbath, and in having made his face bright like Lucifer in order to obtain money and the satisfying of lewdness; she, in having submitted herself to him, taking him for a devil, and for having given herself up to his desires: the one being the worker of witchcraft, the other his manifest accomplice. There can therefore be no pity, and I must say this, for I perceive the aldermen and the populace over-indulgent in the case of the woman. She has not, it is true, killed or robbed, nor bewitched either beasts or mankind, nor healed any sick by remedies extraordinary, but only by known simples, as an honest and Christian physician; but she would have given up her daughter to the devil, and if this maid had not in her youth resisted with frank and valiant courage she would have yielded to Hilbert and would have become a sorceress like the other. Accordingly, I put it to the members of this tribunal if they are not of the opinion to put both these two to the torture?"

The aldermen made no answer, showing sufficiently that this was not their desire with regard to Katheline.

The bailiff then said, continuing his discourse:

"I am, like yourselves, touched with pity and compa.s.sion for her, but this sorceress, bereft of her wits, so obedient to the devil, might she not, had her lewd co-defendant so bidden her, have been capable of cutting off her daughter's head with a sickle, even as Catherine Daru, in the country of France, did to her two daughters at the invitation of the devil? Might she not, if her black husband had so bidden her, have put animals to death; turned the b.u.t.ter in the churn by throwing sugar in it; been present in the body at all the worship and homage to the devil, dance, abominations, and copulations of sorcerers? Might she not have eaten human flesh, killed children to make pasties of them and sell them, as did a pastry cook in Paris; cut off the thighs of hanged men and carry them away to bite into them raw and thus commit infamous robbery and sacrilege? And I ask of the tribunal that in order to discover whether Katheline and Joos Damman have not committed other crimes than those already known and called into account, they be both put to the torture. Joos Damman refusing to confess anything further than the murder, and Katheline not having told everything, the laws of the empire enjoin upon us to proceed as I indicate."

And the aldermen gave sentence of torture for the Friday which was the day after the morrow.

And Nele cried: "Grace, Messeigneurs!" and the people cried with her. But it was in vain.

And Katheline, looking at Joos Damman, said:

"I have Hilbert's hand; come and take it to-night, my beloved."

And they were taken back to the prison.

There by order of the tribunal, the gaoler was ordered to a.s.sign two guardians to each of them, to beat them every time they would have slept; but the two guardians of Katheline left her to sleep all night, and those of Joos Damman beat him cruelly every time he closed his eyes or even nodded his head.

They were hungry all day on Wednesday, the same night and all Thursday until night, when they were given food and drink, meat salted and saltpetred, and water salted and saltpetred likewise. That was the beginning of their torment. And in the morning they brought them, crying out for thirst, into the torture chamber.

There they were set face to face with one another, and bound each upon a bench covered with knotted ropes which made them suffer grievously.

And they were each forced to drink a gla.s.s of water, full of salt and saltpetre.

Joos Damman beginning to sleep upon his bench, the constables struck him.

And Katheline said:

"Do not strike him, sirs; you break his poor body. He only committed one crime, for love, when he killed Hilbert. I am athirst, and thou, too, Hans my beloved. Give him to drink first. Water! Water! my body burns. Spare him, I will die soon in his place. A drink!"

Joos said to her:

"Ugly witch, die and burst like a b.i.t.c.h. Throw her in the fire, Messieurs the Judges. I am athirst!"

The clerks took down all he said.

The bailiff then said to him:

"Hast thou nothing to confess?"

"I have nothing more to say," replied Damman; "you know all."

"Since he persists," said the bailiff, "in his denials, he shall remain on these benches and on these cords until he makes a fresh and full confession, and he shall be athirst, and he shall be kept from sleeping."

"I will stay here," said Joos Damman, "and I will take my pleasure in seeing that witch suffer on this bench. How do you find the marriage bed, my love?"

And Katheline replied, groaning:

"Cold arms and hot heart, Hans, my beloved. I am athirst; my head burns!"

"And thou, woman," said the bailiff, "hast thou naught to say?"

"I hear," said she, "the chariot of death and the dry noise of bones. I thirst! And he taketh me to a great river where there is water, water fresh and clear; but this water it is fire. Hans, my dear, deliver me from these cords. Yea, I am in purgatory and I see on high Monseigneur Jesus in his paradise and Madame Virgin so full of compa.s.sion. O our dear Lady, give me one drop of water: do not eat those lovely fruits all alone."

"This woman is smitten with cruel madness," said one of the aldermen. "She must be taken from the bench of torment."

"She is no more mad than I," said Joos Damman; "it is mere play and acting." And in a threatening voice: "I shall see thee in the fire,"

he said to Katheline, "thou playest the madwoman so well."

And grinding his teeth, he laughed at his cruel lie.

"I thirst," said Katheline; "have pity, I thirst. Hans, my beloved, give me to drink. How white thy face is! Let me come to him, Messieurs the Judges." And opening her mouth wide: "Yea, yea, they are now putting fire in my breast, and the devils fasten me on this cruel bed. Hans, take thy sword and slay them, thou so mighty. Water, to drink, to drink!"

"Perish, witch," said Joos Damman; "they ought to thrust a choke-pear into her mouth to keep her from setting herself up thus, a low creature like her, against me, a man of rank."

At this word one of the aldermen, an enemy of the n.o.bility, replied:

"Messire Bailiff, it is contrary to the laws and customs of the empire to put a choke-pear into the mouth of any that are being interrogated, for they are here to tell the truth, and for us to judge them from what they say. That is permitted only when the accused being condemned might, upon the scaffold, speak to the people, and in this way move them, and stir up popular feelings."

"I thirst," said Katheline, "give me to drink, Hans, my darling."

"Ah!" said he, "thou dost suffer, accursed witch, sole cause of all the torments I am enduring; but in this torture chamber thou shalt undergo the pain of the candles, the strappado, the wooden splinters under the nails of thy feet and hands. They will make thee ride naked astride a coffin whose back will be sharp as a blade, and thou shalt confess that thou art not mad, but a foul witch to whom Satan hath given it in charge to work evil upon n.o.ble men. A drink!"

"Hans, my beloved," said Katheline, "be not wroth with thy handmaiden! I suffer a thousand pangs for thee, my lord. Spare him, Messieurs the Judges. Give him a full goblet to drink, and keep but one drop for me. Hans, is it not yet the hour of the sea-eagle?"

The bailiff then said to Joos Damman:

"When thou didst kill Hilbert, what was the motive of this combat?"

"It was," said Joos, "for a girl at Heyst we both wished to have."

"A girl at Heyst!" cried Katheline, trying at all costs to rise up from her bench; "thou art deceiving me for another, traitor devil. Didst thou know that I was listening to thee behind the d.y.k.e when thou saidst that thou wouldst fain have all the money, which was Claes's money? Without doubt it was to go and spend it with her in liquorishness and revelling! Alas! and I that would have given him my blood if he could have made gold of it! And all for another! Be accursed!"

But suddenly, weeping and trying to turn round on her bench of torture:

"Nay, Hans, say that thou wilt still love thy poor handmaid, and I shall scratch the earth with my fingers and find thee a treasure; aye, there is such; and I will go with the hazel twig that bends this way and that where there are metals; and I will find it and bring it back to thee; kiss me, darling, and thou shalt be rich; and we shall eat meat, and we shall drink beer every day; aye, aye, all these folk also drink beer; fresh, foaming beer. Oh! sirs, give me but one single drop; I am in the fire; Hans, I know well where there are hazel trees, but we must wait for the spring time."

"Hold thy tongue, witch," said Joos Damman; "I know thee not. Thou hast taken Hilbert for me: it was he that came to see thee. And in thy wicked mind thou didst call him Hans. Know that I am not called Hans, but Joos: we were of the same height, Hilbert and I. I do not know thee; it was Hilbert, without doubt, that stole the seven hundred florins carolus; give me to drink; my father will pay a hundred florins for a little goblet of water; but I know not this woman."