The Legend of Ulenspiegel Volume Ii Part 48

"Take away the fire; my head burns!"

And she looked on Joos Damman with tender love.

And he looked at her with hate and contempt.

And the lords and gentlemen his friends, having been summoned to Damme, were all present as witnesses before the tribunal.

Then the bailiff spake and said:

"Nele, the girl who defends her mother Katheline with such great and courageous affection, found in the pocket st.i.tched in her mother's jacket, a jacket for feast days, a note signed 'Joos Damman.' Among the belongings taken from the corpse of Hilbert Ryvish I found in the dead man's satchel another letter addressed to him by the said Joos Damman, the defendant here present before you. I have kept both these letters in my custody, in order that at the appropriate moment, which is the present, you might judge of this man's obstinacy and acquit or condemn him in accordance with law and justice. Here is the parchment found in the satchel; I have never touched it, and know not whether it is legible or not."

The judges were then in great perplexity.

The bailiff endeavoured to undo the parchment ball; but it was in vain, and Joos Damman laughed.

An alderman said:

"Let us put the ball in water, and then before the fire. If there is in it any secret of adhesion, the fire and the water will melt it."

The water was brought; the executioner lit a great fire of wood in the field; the smoke rose up blue into the clear sky through the verdurous branches of the lime tree of justice.

"Do not put the letter in the basin," said an alderman "for if it is written with sal ammoniac dissolved in water, you will efface the characters."

"Nay," said the surgeon, who was there, "the characters will not be effaced; the water will soften only the point that keeps the magic ball from opening up."

The parchment was dipped in the water and being softened, was unfolded.

"Now," said the surgeon, "put it before the fire."

"Aye, aye," said Nele, "put the paper before the fire; master surgeon is on the road to the truth, for the murderer grows pale and trembles in his limbs."

Thereupon, Messire Joos Damman said:

"I neither grew pale nor trembled, thou little common harpy that art fain of the death of a man of rank; thou shalt never succeed; this parchment must needs be rotten, after sixteen years' sojourning in the earth."

"The parchment is not decayed," said the sheriff, "for the satchel was lined with silk; silk is not consumed in the earth, and the worms have not gone through the parchment."

The parchment was put in front of the fire.

"Monseigneur Bailiff, Monseigneur Bailiff," said Nele, "there is the ink appearing before the fire; give orders that the writing be read."

As the surgeon was about to read it, Messire Joos Damman would have stretched out his arms to seize the parchment; but Nele flung herself upon his arm quick as the wind and said:

"Thou shalt not touch it, for thereon is written thy death or the death of Katheline. If now thy heart bleeds, murderer, there are fifteen years through which ours have been bleeding; fifteen years that Katheline suffers; fifteen years she had her brain in her head burned by thee; fifteen years that Soetkin is dead by consequence of the torture; fifteen years that we are needy, ragged, and live in abject want, but proudly. Read the paper, read the paper! The judges are G.o.d upon earth, for they are Justice; read the paper!"

"Read the paper!" cried the men and women, weeping. "Nele is a brave la.s.s! read the paper! Katheline is no witch!"

And the clerk read:

"To Hilbert, son of Willem Ryvish, Esquire, Joos Damman, greeting.

"Blessed friend, lose thy money no more in gambling dens, at dice, and other follies. I will tell thee how it can be won for very certain. Let us make us devils, handsome devils, beloved of women and of girls. Let us take the fair and rich, let us leave the ugly and poor; let them pay for their pleasure. I made, at this trade, in six months five thousand rixdaeldars in the country of Germany. Women will give their petticoat and chemise to their man when they love him; flee from the miserly ones with pinched up nose that take time to pay for their pleasures. For thy own affair, and to appear goodly and a true devil, an incubus, if they accept thee for the night, announce thy coming by crying like a night bird. And to make thee a veritable devil's face, of a terrifying devil, rub thy visage with phosphorus, which is luminous in spots when it is damp. Its odour is disagreeable, but they will believe that it is the odour of h.e.l.l. Slay what is in thy way, man, woman, or beast.

"We shall soon go together to the house of Katheline, a fine good-natured wench; her daughter Nele, a child of my own, if Katheline was faithful to me, is comely and pretty; thou wilt take her easily; I give her to thee, for I care but little for these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds that cannot for certain be recognized as one's own offspring. Her mother gave me already more than twenty-three carolus, all she possessed. But she hath a treasure hidden, which is, unless I be a fool, the inheritance of Claes, the heretic burned at Damme: seven hundred florins carolus liable to confiscation, but the good King Philip, who had so many of his subjects burned to inherit after them, could never lay his claw on this sweet treasure. It will weigh more in my pouch than in his. Katheline will tell me where it is; we shall divide. Only thou must leave me the greater part for the discovery.

"As for the women, being our gentle handmaids and slaves in love, we shall take them to the land of Germany. There we shall teach them to become female demons and succubae, drawing the love of all the rich burgesses and men of birth; there we shall live, they and we, upon love paid for with good rixdaeldars, velvets, silk, gold, pearls, and jewels; we shall thus be rich without fatigue, and, unknown to the succubae devils, beloved by the most lovely, always exacting payment besides. All women are fools and ninnies for the man that can light the fire of love that G.o.d set beneath their girdles. Katheline and Nele will be more so than others, and believing us to be devils, will obey us in all things: thou, do thou keep thy forename, but never give the name of thy father, Ryvish. If the judge seizes the women, we shall depart without their knowing us or being able to denounce us. To the rescue, my trusty comrade. Fortune smiles on the young, as was wont to say his late Sainted Majesty Charles the Fifth, past master in affairs of love and of war."

And the clerk, making an end of reading, said:

"Such is this letter, and it is signed, 'Joos Damman, esquire'."

And the people shouted:

"To the death with the murderer! To the death with the sorcerer! To the fire the turner of women's wits! To the gallows with the robber!"

The bailiff said then:

"People, keep silence, that in all freedom we may judge this man."

And speaking to the aldermen:

"I will," said he, "read to you the second letter, found by Nele in the pocket of Katheline's festal jacket; it is conceived as follows:

"Darling Witch, here is the recipe of a compound sent me by the very wife of Lucifer: by the help of this compound thou wilt be able to transport thyself to the sun, the moon, and the stars, converse with the elemental spirits that carry the prayers of men unto G.o.d, and to traverse all the towns and burgs and rivers and fields of the whole universe. Thou art to bruise together in equal quant.i.ties: stramonium, sleep-solanum, henbane, opium, the fresh tips of hemp, belladonna, and datura.

"If thou wilt, we shall go this night to the sabbath of the spirits: but thou must love me better and not be miserly again like the other night, when thou didst refuse me ten florins, saying thou didst not have them. I know that thou dost hide a treasure and wilt not tell me of it. Dost thou love me no longer, my sweetheart?"

"Thy cold devil,

"Hanske."

"To the death with the sorcerer!" cried the people.

The bailiff said:

"We must compare the two writings."

This being done, they were adjudged to be similar. The bailiff then said to the lords and gentlemen there present:

"Do ye recognize this man for Messire Joos Damman, son of the alderman of La Keure of Ghent?"

"Aye," said they.

"Did ye know," said he, "Messire Hilbert, son of Willem Ryvish, Esquire?"