Then a large body of men appeared before them, carrying lanterns. And they heard a monstrous, husky, devil’s voice crying: “Out, friends, out upon them! Loot for the Irontooth!”
But here suddenly all these good women let fly their arrows with great precision, for though they themselves remained in darkness they could see the brigands, all lit up by their lanterns, as clearly as in daylight. Two hundred of the men fell at the first volley, some with arrows in their skulls, others in their necks, and several with them in their bellies.
The Irontooth himself was among the first that the good women heard fall with a great thud, from an arrow let fly by Wantje, which pierced him through the eyeball neatly.
Some were not wounded at all, but, having troubled conscience, thought when they saw all these white figures that ’twas the souls of those whom they had made pass from life into death, come back by God’s grace to avenge themselves upon them. So they fell on their faces in the dust, as if dead from fear, crying out in a most piteous manner: “Mercy, Lord God! send back to hell all these ghosts, we pray you.”
But when they saw the good wives bearing down on them fear put strength into their legs, and they made off as fast as they would carry them.
XII. Wherein Pieter Gans is nearer the stake than the wine-barrel.
When the enemy had been so far discomfited the women came back into the square and stood before the prefecture, not feeling any glory, but rather sadness at having had to shed Christian blood in this manner. Ah, they returned thanks with a full heart to Our Lady the Virgin and Our Lord Jesus, who had given them the victory.
Nor did they forget in their thanksgiving the good angel who had come to their assistance in the form of a bright star. And they sang fair hymns and litanies very sweetly.
Meanwhile all the cocks in the countryside awoke one by one and heralded with their clarions the new day about to dawn.