And among the people, the women said:
"Why confess it, Ulenspiegel? No man saw it, now thou shalt die."
And the prisoner laughed, leaping for bitter joy, waving his armsthat were tied and covered with blood-stained wrappings.
"He will die," he said, "he will pass from earth into hell, the ropeabout his neck, as a ragamuffin, a robber, a rascal: he will die,God is just."
"He shall not die," said the bailiff. "After ten years, murder maynot be punished in the soil of Flanders. Ulenspiegel committed a badaction, but through filial love: Ulenspiegel will not be prosecutedfor this deed."
"Long live the law!" cried the people. "Lang leven de Wet."
The bells of Notre Dame rang for the dead. And the prisoner gnashedhis teeth, drooped his head, and wept his first tear.
And he had his hand cut off, and his tongue pierced with a hot iron,and he was burned alive by a slow fire before the doorway of theTownhall.
At the point of death he yelled:
"The king shall not have my gold; I lied.... Evil tigers, I will comeback to bite you."
And Toria cried:
"He pays, he pays! They writhe and twist, the arms and the legsthat ran to murder: it smokes, the murderer's body; his white hair,hyaena's hair, burns on his pale face. He pays! He pays!"
And the fishmonger died, howling like a wolf.
And the bells of Notre Dame tolled for the dead.
And Lamme and Ulenspiegel mounted upon their asses again.
And Nele, sad and grieving, dwelt with Katheline, who said, withoutceasing:
"Take away the fire! my head is burning; come back, Hanske, mydarling."
BOOK IV
I
Being at Heyst, upon the dunes, Ulenspiegel and Lamme see, comingfrom Ostend, from Blanckenberghe, from Knokke, many fishing boatsfull of armed men, adherents of the Beggars of Zealand, who wear intheir headgear the silver crescent with this inscription: "Better toserve the Turk than the Pope."
Ulenspiegel is glad; he whistles like the lark; from all sides answersthe warlike clarion of the cock.
The boats, sailing or fishing and selling their fish, come to land,one after the other, at Emden. There William of Blois is detained,who is equipping a ship under commission from the Prince of Orange.
Tres-Long, having been at Emden for eleven weeks, was bitterly sick ofwaiting. He went from his ship to land and from the land to his ship,like a bear on a chain.
Ulenspiegel and Lamme, wandering about on the quays, saw there a lordof a jovial visage, somewhat melancholy and at a loss to heave up oneof the paving-stones of the quay with a pikestaff. Not succeedingin this he still bent every effort to carry out his undertaking,while a dog gnawed at a bone behind him.
Ulenspiegel came to the dog and pretended to want to rob him of hisbone. The dog growls; Ulenspiegel does not stop: the dog makes agreat uproar of doggish wrath.
The lord, turning at the noise, said to Ulenspiegel:
"What good does it do thee to torment this beast?"
"What good does it do you, Messire, to torment this pavement?"
"It is not the same thing at all," said the lord.
"The difference is not extreme," replied Ulenspiegel; "if the dogsets store by his bone and wants to keep it, this pavement holds toits quay and is fain to remain on it. And it is the very least thatfolk like us may do, turning to busy ourselves about a dog when folklike you busy yourselves about a paving stone."
Lamme remained behind Ulenspiegel, not daring to speak.
"Who art thou?" asked the lord.
"I am Thyl Ulenspiegel, the son of Claes, who died in the flames forhis faith."
And he whistled like the lark and the lord crowed like the cock.
"I am Admiral Tres-Long," said he; "what wouldst thou with me?"
Ulenspiegel narrated to him his adventures, and gave him five hundredcarolus.
"Who is this big man?" asked Tres-Long, pointing a finger at Lamme.
"My comrade and friend," replied Ulenspiegel: "he desires, like myself,to sing on your ship, with the fine voice of a musket, the song ofdeliverance for the land of our fathers."
"Ye are brave men both," said Tres-Long, "and ye shall go on my ship."
They were then in the month of February; sharp was the wind, keen thefrost. After three weeks of grudging waiting Tres-Long left Emden underprotest. Thinking to enter the Texel, he went out from Vlie, but wasforced to go in to Wieringen, where his ship was locked up in the ice.
Soon there was a merry spectacle all about: sledges and skaters allin velvet; women skating in jackets and skirts broidered with gold,pearl, scarlet, azure; lads and lasses went, came, glided, laughed,following one another in line, or two by two, in pairs, singing thesong of love upon the ice, or going to eat and drink in booths deckedout with flags, brandy, oranges, figs, peperkoek, schols, eggs, hotvegetables, and eete-koeken, which are pancakes and pickled vegetables,while all about them sleds and sailing sleighs made the ice cry outunder their runners.
Lamme, seeking his wife, went wandering on skates like the jolly menand women, but he fell often.
Meanwhile, Ulenspiegel went to drink and to feed in a small inn onthe quay where he had not to pay too dear for his daily rations;and he liked to talk with the old baesine.
One Sunday about nine he went in there asking them to give himhis dinner.
"But," said he to a pretty woman coming forward to serve him, "baesinerejuvenated, what hast thou done with thy old wrinkles? Thy mouth hathall its teeth, white and girlish, and its lips are red as cherries. Isit for me, that soft and cunning smile?"
"No, no," said she; "but what must I give you?"
"Thyself," said he.
The woman answered:
"That would be too much for a starveling like you; would you not likeother meat?"
Ulenspiegel making no reply:
"What have you done," she said, "with that handsome, well-made,corpulent man whom I often saw with you?"
"Lamme?" said he.
"What have you done with him?" she said.
Ulenspiegel replied:
"He eats, in the booths, hard eggs, smoked eels, salt fish, zuertjes,and all that he can put under his tooth; and all to look for hiswife. Why art thou not his wife, pretty one? Wouldst thou like fiftyflorins? Wouldst thou like a gold necklace?"
But she, crossing herself:
"I am not to buy or to take," said she.
"Dost thou love naught?" said he.
"I love thee as my neighbour, but I love above all my Lord Christ andMadame the Virgin, who bid me live a chaste life. Hard and heavy areits duties, but God is our helper, we poor women. Yet there are somethat succumb. Is thy big friend happy?"
Ulenspiegel replied:
"He is gay when he is eating, sad when fasting, and always pensive. Butthou, art thou happy or sad?"
"We women," said she, "are slaves of that that rules us!"
"The moon?" said he.
"Aye," said she.
"I am going to tell Lamme to come to see thee."
"Do not so," said she; "he would weep and I in likewise."
"Didst thou ever see his wife?" asked Ulenspiegel.
Sighing, she answered:
"She sinned with him and was condemned to a cruel penance. She knowsthat he goeth on the sea for the triumph of heresy, and that is ahard thing for a Christian heart to think on. Defend him if he isattacked; care for him if he is wounded: his wife bade me make thisrequest of you."
"Lamme is my brother and my friend," replied Ulenspiegel.
"Ah!" she said, "why do ye not return to the bosom of our MotherHoly Church?"
"She devours her children," answered Ulenspiegel.
And he went his way.
One morning in March, since the wind, that was blowing sharp andcutting, ceased not to thicken the ice, and Tres-Long's ship couldnot leave, the sailors and the soldiers of the vessel were holdingfeasting and revel on sledges and on skates.
Ulenspiegel was at the i
nn, and the pretty woman said to him, allwoeful and as if bereft of her wits:
"Poor Lamme! poor Ulenspiegel!"
"Why do you lament?" asked he.
"Alas! Alas!" said she, "why do ye not believe in the mass. Ye wouldgo to paradise, without a doubt, and I could save you in this life."
Seeing her go to the door and listen attentively, Ulenspiegel saidto her:
"It is not the snow falling that you are listening to?"
"No," said she.
"It is not the moaning wind that you give ear to?"
"No," she said again.
"Nor to the merry din that our valiant sailors are making in thetavern close by?"
"Death cometh as a thief," she said.
"Death!" said Ulenspiegel. "I do not understand thee; come insideand speak."
"They are there," she said.
"Who?"
"Who?" she answered. "The soldiers of Simonen-Bol, who are to come,in the name of the duke, to throw themselves on all of you; if youare so well treated here, it is like the bullocks that are meant forthe slaughter. Ah! why," said she all in tears, "why did I not knowit save but just now."
"Do not weep, nor cry out," said Ulenspiegel, "and stay where you are!"
"Do not betray me," said she.
Ulenspiegel went out from her house, ran, made his way to all thebooths and taverns, whispering into the ears of the seamen and thesoldiers these words: "The Spaniard is coming."
All ran to the ship, preparing with the utmost haste all that wasneeded for battle, and they awaited the enemy. Ulenspiegel saidto Lamme:
"Seest thou yon pretty woman standing upon the quay, with her blackdress embroidered with scarlet, and hiding her face under her whitehood?"
"It is all one to me," replied Lamme. "I am cold; I want to sleep."
And he rolled his head up in his opperst-kleed. And like that he wasas a man deaf.
Ulenspiegel then recognized the woman and called to her from the ship:
"Dost thou wish to follow us?"
"To the grave," said she, "but I cannot...."
"Thou wouldst do well," said Ulenspiegel; "yet think of this: whenthe nightingale stays in the forest, it is happy and sings; but ifit leaves the forest and risks its little wings in the wind of thegreat sea, it breaks them and dies."
"I have sung in my house," said she, "and would sing outside if Icould." Then drawing closer to the ship: "Take this ointment," shesaid, "for thyself and thy friend who sleeps when he should wake...."
And she went away saying:
"Lamme! Lamme! God keep thee from harm; come back safe."
And she uncovered her face.
"My wife, my wife!" cried Lamme.
And he would have leaped down on the ice.
"Thy faithful wife!" said she.
And she ran away swiftly.
Lamme would have leaped from off the deck down on the ice, but he wasprevented by a soldier, who held him back by his opperst-kleed. Hecried, wept, implored that he might be given leave to go. But theprovost said to him:
"Thou shalt be hanged if thou dost leave the ship."
Again Lamme would have cast himself on the ice, but an old Beggarheld him back, saying to him:
"The floor is damp, you might get your feet wet."
And Lamme fell on his behind, weeping and saying without ceasing:
"My wife, my wife! let me go to my wife!"
"Thou shalt see her again," said Ulenspiegel. "She loves thee, butshe loves God more than thee."
"The mad she-devil," cried Lamme. "If she loves God more than herhusband, why does she show herself to me lovely and desirable? Andif she loves me, why does she leave me?"
"Dost thou see clear in a deep well?" asked Ulenspiegel.
"Alas!" said Lamme, "I shall die before long."
And he stayed upon the deck, livid and distraught.
Meanwhile, had come up the men of Simonen-Bol, with a great artillery.
They fired against the ship, which replied to them. And their cannonballs broke the ice all about it. Towards evening a warm rain fell.
The wind blowing from the west, the sea grew angry under the ice, andheaved it up in immense blocks, which were seen rising up on high,falling back again, clashing against one another, one mounting ontop of another, not without peril to the ship, which when dawn brokethrough the clouds of night, opened out its canvas wings like a birdof freedom and sailed towards the free ocean.
There they joined up with the fleet of Messire de Lumey de la Marche,admiral of Holland and Zealand, and chief and captain-general, andas such carrying a lantern at his ship's peak.
"Look well at him, my son," said Ulenspiegel; "that one willnever spare thee, if thou shouldst wish to leave the ship againstorders. Hearest thou his voice breaking forth like thunder? See howbroad and strong he is in his great stature! Look at his long handswith the crooked nails! See his round eyes, eagle eyes and cold,and his long pointed beard that he means to leave to grow untilhe has hanged all the monks and priests to avenge the death of thetwo counts! See him redoubtable and cruel; he will have thee hangedhigh on a short rope, if thou dost continue to whine and cry always:'My wife!'"
"My son," replied Lamme, "he that talks of a halter for his neighbourhas already the hempen cravat on his own neck."
"Thou thyself shalt be the first to wear it. Such is my vow as afriend," said Ulenspiegel.
"I shall see thee on the gallows," replied Lamme, "thrust out thypoisonous tongue a fathom out of thy mouth."
And both were in mere jest.
On that day Tres-Long's ship took a ship from Biscay laden withmercury, gold dust, wines, and spices. And the ship was emptied ofits marrow, men, and booty, as a beef bone under a lion's teeth.
It was at this time also that the duke ordained in the Low Countriescruel and abominable imposts, obliging all the inhabitants whosold real or personal estate to pay one thousand florins in tenthousand. And this tax was a permanent one. All sellers and buyerswhatsoever must pay the king the tenth part of the purchase price,and it was said among the people that if goods were sold ten timeswithin a week the king should have all.
And thus commerce and industry took the way towards Ruin and Death.
And the Beggars took Briele, a strong seaboard fortress that waschristened the Orchard of Freedom.
II
In the first days of May, under a clear sky, with the ship sailingproudly along the sea, Ulenspiegel sang:
"The ashes beat upon my heart. The butchers are come; they have struck With poignard, fire, violence, the sword. They have paid for foulest spying. Where once were Love and Faith, mild virtues, They have set Denunciation and Mistrust. May the butchers be smitten, Beat the drum of war.
"Long live the Beggar! Beat upon the drum! Briele is taken, Flessingue, too, the key of the Scheldt; God is good, Camp-Veere is taken, Where Zealand kept her artillery! We have bullets, powder, and shot, Iron shot and leaden shot. God is with us, who then is against?
"Beat upon the drum of war and glory! Long live the Beggar! Beat upon the drum!
"The sword is drawn, be our hearts high, Firm be our arms, the sword is drawn. Out upon the tenth tithe, the whole of ruin, Death to the butcher, halter to the spoiler, For a perjured king a rebel folk. The sword is drawn for our rights, For our houses, our wives, and our children. The sword is drawn, beat upon the drum!
"High are our hearts, stout are our arms. Out upon the tenth tithe, out upon the infamous pardon. Beat upon the drum of war, beat upon the drum!"
"Aye, good fellows and friends," said Ulenspiegel; "aye, they have setup at Antwerp, before the Townhall, a dazzling scaffold covered withred cloth; the duke is seated upon it like a king upon his throne inthe midst of liverymen and soldiers. Meaning to smile benevolently,he makes a sour grimace. Beat upon the war drum!
"He hath accorded a pardon, make silence, his gilded cuirass shinesin the sun; the grand provost is on ho
rseback beside the dais; lo herecometh the herald with his kettle-drums; he reads; it is a pardon forall those that have not sinned; the others will be punished cruelly.
"Oyez, good fellows, he reads the edict that orders, on penalty asfor rebellion, the payment of the tenth and twentieth deniers."
And Ulenspiegel sang:
"O Duke! hearest thou the voice of the people, The strong dull clamour? Tis the sea that rises In the hour of the mighty surges. Enough of gold, enough of blood. Enough of ruins. Beat upon the drum! The sword is drawn. Beat upon the drum of woe!
"It is the nails tearing the bleeding wound, Robbery after murder. Must thou then Mix all our gold with our blood for your drink? We moved in ways of duty, faithful and true To the King's Majesty. His Majesty is perjured, We are free of our oaths. Beat upon the drum of war.
"Duke of Alba, bloody duke, See these booths, these shops shut fast, See these brewers, bakers, grocers, Refusing to sell so as not to pay. Who then salutes thee when thou art passing? No man. Feelest thou, like a steaming plague Hate and Scorn enwrap thee round?
"The fair land of Flanders, The gay country of Brabant, Are sad as graveyards. There where of old, in freedom's days, Sang the viols, squealed the fifes, There are silence now and death. Beat upon the drum of war.
"Instead of jolly faces Of drinkers, and singing lovers There are pallid faces now Of men that wait, resigned, The stroke of the sword of injustice. Beat upon the drum of war.