“To death with the sorcerer!” cried the crowd.
The bailiff said:
“Let the two handwritings be compared.”
When this had been done, and when it had been found that they were in all respects similar, the bailiff said:
“After these proofs, Messire Joos Damman is found to be a sorcerer, a murderer, a seducer of women, a robber of the property of the King, and as such he must be accounted guilty of high treason against God and man.”
And the bailiff and the aldermen gave judgment on Joos Damman, and he was condemned to be degraded from the rank of a nobleman, and to be burned alive in the slower fire till death supervened. And he underwent this punishment on the following day in front of the Town Hall. And all the time he kept on crying: “Let the witch perish, it is she and she alone who is guilty! Cursed be God! My father will avenge me!”
And the people said: “Behold how he curses and blasphemes. He is dying the death of a dog.”
On the next day, the bailiff and the aldermen gave sentence upon Katheline. She was condemned to undergo the trial by water in the Bruges Canal. If she floated she would be burned for a witch. If she sank and was drowned she would be considered to have died the death of a Christian and would be buried in the churchyard.
So on the morrow Katheline was conducted to the canal-bank, holding a candle in her hand and walking barefoot in a shift of black linen. Along by the trees went the long procession. In front was the Dean of Notre Dame, chanting the prayers for the dead, and with him were his vicars, and the beadle carrying the cross. Behind came the bailiff of Damme, the aldermen, the clerks, the sergeants of the commune, the provost, the executioner and his two assistants. On the edge of the procession there followed a great crowd of women crying, and men mourning, in pity for Katheline, who herself walked like a lamb that allows itself to be led whither it knows not. And all the time she kept on crying:
