XXXIII
By sea, by river, in fair weather and foul, through snows of winter and summer’s heat, the ships of the Beggarmen sailed before the breeze. Full-bellied was their canvas and white as the down of swans—white swans of Liberty.
But to the King of Blood came the news of their conquests, and death was already at work upon his vitals, and his body was full of worms. And he dragged himself along the corridors of his palace at Valladolid, and he never laughed—not even at daybreak, what time the Sun rose to irradiate all the lands of his empire as with the very smile of God.
But Ulenspiegel, Lamme, and Nele sang out like birds, living from day to day, having joy to hear of many a funeral pyre put out by the brave Beggarmen. And Tyl sang five songs, all to the glory of the land of Flanders and to the despite of her enemies.
And it came to pass that on a day, having taken the towns of Rammeken, Gertruydenberg, and Alckmaer, the Beggarmen returned to Flushing. And there in the harbour they beheld a little boat moored. And in the boat was a pretty-looking woman with golden-brown hair, brown eyes, fresh cheeks, rounded arms, and white hands. And all at once the woman cried out:
“Lamme! Lamme!” And then again: “Ah, but you must not approach me! I have taken a vow before God.... Yet I love you. Ah, my dear husband!”
Nele said: “It is Calleken Huysbrechts—the fair Calleken!”
“Even so,” answered the woman. “But, alas! the hour of noon has already struck for my beauty.” And she looked very sorrowful.
But now Lamme jumped down from the ship into a little skiff, which was straightway brought alongside of the boat wherein was his wife.
“What have you been doing?” he asked her. “What has been happening to you? Why did you leave me? And why now do you make as though you would have none of me?”
Then Calleken told him, in a voice that oftentimes trembled with tears, how that she had entrusted the care of her soul to a monk, one Brother Cornelis Adriaensen, and how he had warned her against her husband for that he was a heretic and a consorter with heretics. How also by his eloquence he had persuaded her that a life of celibacy was most pleasing unto God and his saints, albeit he oftentimes profaned the holy confessional with many a penance that was most distressful to her modesty. “Nevertheless,” she ended, “I swear before God that I remained ever faithful to you, my husband, for I loved you.”
But Lamme gazed upon her sadly and reproachfully, so that Nele said to him:
“If Calleken has been faithful as she says, it behoves her now to leave you in very deed, as a punishment for your unkindness.”
“He knows not how I love him,” said Calleken.
“Is this the truth?” cried Lamme. And then seeing that it was so: “Then come, wife,” he cried, “the winter is over!”
Thereafter, having given and received from all the kiss of peace: “Come now,” cried Lamme, “come, wife, with me. For now is the hour of lawful loves!”
And together they sailed away in their little boat.
Meanwhile the soldiers, the sailors, and the ship’s boys that stood around, all waved their caps in the air and shouted: “Adieu, brother! Adieu, Lamme! Adieu, brother—brother and friend!”
And Nele removed with the tip of her sweet finger a tear that had settled in the corner of the eye of Ulenspiegel.
“You are sad, my love?” she asked him.
“He was good,” Tyl said.
Nele sighed.
“Ah! This war—will it never end? Must we live for ever thus, in the midst of blood and tears?”
“Let us seek the Seven,” said Ulenspiegel. “The hour of deliverance is at hand.”