Joos Damman began to fall off to sleep where he was, but the sergeants soon beat him awake again. And Katheline said:

"Do not beat him, kind sirs. He has committed but a single crime, when he killed Hilbert--and that was done for love's sake. Oh, but I am thirsty! And you also are thirsty, Hans, my beloved! Pray give him something to drink first of all. Water! Water! My body is burning me up. But spare him. I will die for him. Water!"

Joos said to her:

"Ugly old witch that you are, go and die for all I care! Throw her into the fire, my Lords! Oh, but I am thirsty!"

Meanwhile the clerks of the court were busy writing down every word that was being said. And the bailiff asked him:

"Have you nothing to confess?"

"I have nothing more to say," replied Damman. "You know all that there is to know."

"Forasmuch as he persists in his denials," said the bailiff, "let him remain where he is until he shall have made a complete avowal of his crimes. Let him neither eat nor drink nor go to sleep."

"So be it," said Joos Damman. "And I will amuse myself by watching the sufferings of this old witch here."

And Katheline answered him, saying:

"Cold arms, warm heart, Hans, my beloved! I am thirsty, my head is burning!"

The clerk of the court wrote down what she said, and the bailiff asked her:

"Woman, have you nothing to say in your own defence?"

But Katheline only gazed at Joos Damman, and said very amorously:

"It is the hour of the sea-eagle, Hans, my pet. They say that you will give me back the seven hundred caroluses. Put out the fire! Put out the fire!" Then she began to cry out most horribly: "Water! Water! My head is burning! G.o.d and His angels are eating apples in heaven!"

And she lost consciousness.

Thereupon the bailiff ordered her to be released from the bench of torture; which was done, and thereafter she was seen to stagger to and fro because of her feet, which were all swollen from the cords that had been bound too tight.

"Give her to drink," said the bailiff.

And they gave her some fresh water which she swallowed greedily, holding the goblet between her teeth as a dog holds a bone and refusing to let it go. Then they gave her more water, and this she would have carried over to Joos Damman had not the torturer wrested the goblet from her hand. And she fell down asleep, like a piece of lead.

But Joos Damman cried out in his fury:

"I also am thirsty and sleepy. Why do you give her to drink? Why do you let her fall asleep?"

"She is a woman," answered the bailiff. "And she is weak and out of her mind."

"Her madness is only pretence," said Joos Damman. "She is a witch. I want to drink, and I want to sleep."

And he closed his eyes, but his tormentors struck him in the face.

"Give me a knife," he cried, "that I may cut these varlets in pieces. I am a n.o.bleman; no one has ever struck me in the face before! Water! Let me sleep. I am innocent. It is not I that took the seven hundred caroluses, it was Hilbert. Water! I have never committed any sorceries nor any incantations. I am innocent. Leave me alone and give me something to drink."

But the bailiff only asked him how he had pa.s.sed the time after he left Katheline.

"I do not know Katheline at all," he said, "therefore I never left her. You have asked me an unfair question, and I am not bound to answer it. Give me something to drink. Let me go to sleep. I tell you it was Hilbert who was responsible for everything."

"Take him away," said the bailiff, "put him back into his prison. But see that he has nothing to drink, and that he does not fall asleep until he has admitted his sorceries and incantations."

And now Damman suffered the most cruel torture of all, and he cried out continually in his prison: "Water! Water!" And so loudly did he cry that the people outside could hear him, nevertheless they felt no pity for him. And when he began to fall off to sleep the guards struck him in the face, and he cried out again, like a tiger:

"I am a n.o.bleman, and I will kill you, you varlets! I will go to the King our master. Water!"

But he would confess nothing at all, and they left him where he was.

x.x.xI

It was the month of May. The Tree of Justice was green again. Green also were those gra.s.sy banks where the judges were wont to seat themselves. Nele was summoned to give evidence, for it was the day on which the judgment was to be promulgated. And the people--men and women--of Damme, stood around the open s.p.a.ce of the court, and the sun shone brightly.

Katheline and Joos Damman were now brought before the tribunal, and Damman appeared more pale than ever because of the torture he had suffered, the many nights he had pa.s.sed without sleep or anything to drink. As for Katheline, she could scarcely support herself on her tottering legs, and she pointed to the sun continually, and cried out: "Put out the fire! My head is burning!" And she gazed at Joos Damman with tender love. And he looked back at her with hate and despite. And his friends, the Lords and gentlemen who had been summoned to Damme, were all present there before the tribunal as witnesses.

Then the bailiff spoke as follows:

"The girl Nele here, who is protecting her mother Katheline with such great and brave affection, has found sewn into the pocket of Katheline's Sunday dress a letter signed by Joos Damman. And I myself, when I was inspecting the dead body of Hilbert Ryvish, which was dug up in the field near Katheline's cottage, found thereon a second letter, addressed to him and signed by the said Joos Damman, the accused now present before you. Is it your pleasure that these letters be now read to you?"

"Read them, read them!" cried the crowd. "Nele is a brave girl! Read the letters! Katheline is no witch!"

And the clerk of the court read out as follows:

"To Hilbert, son of William Ryvish, knight, Joos Damman, knight, Greeting.

"Most excellent friend, let me advise you to lose no more of your money in gambling, dicing, and other foolishness of that kind. I will tell you a way of making money safe and sound. My plan is that we should disguise ourselves as devils, such as are beloved by women and girls, and then choose out for ourselves all the pretty ones, leaving alone all such as are ugly or poor; for we will make them pay for their pleasure. Do you know that when I was in Germany I acquired by this means as much as five thousand rixdaelders, and all within the s.p.a.ce of six months? For a woman will give her last denier to the man she loves. When, therefore, such an one is willing to receive you in the night, the thing is to announce your coming by crying like a night-bird, so it may seem that you are really and truly a devil; and if you want to make your countenance appear devilish you must rub it all over with phosphorus, for phosphorus burns when it is damp, and the smell of it is horrible; and the women mistake it for the odour of h.e.l.l itself. And if anything gets in your way, be it man, woman, or beast, kill it.

"Before long we will go together to one Katheline, a handsome woman I know. And she has a daughter--a child of mine forsooth, if indeed Katheline has proved faithful to me. And she is a right comely la.s.s, and I give her to you, for these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are nothing to me. And you must know that I have already had from the mother a sum of three and twenty caroluses. This money all belonged to her. But somewhere, unless I am a dunce, she keeps secreted the fortune of Claes, that heretic, you remember, who was burned alive at Damme--seven hundred caroluses in all, and liable to confiscation. But the good King Philip, who has burned so many of his subjects for the sake of their inheritance, cannot lay his claw upon this, and a.s.suredly it will weigh heavier in my purse than ever it would in his. Katheline will tell me where it is hidden, and we will share it between us. Fortune favours the young, as His Sacred Majesty Charles V was never tired of saying, and he was a past master in all the arts of love and war."

Here the clerk of the court stopped reading and said:

"Such is the letter, and it is signed Joos Damman."

And the people cried out:

"To the death with the murderer! To the death with the sorcerer!"

But the bailiff ordered them to keep silence so that judgment might be pa.s.sed on the prisoners with every form of freedom and legality. After that he addressed himself again to the aldermen.