Katheline led to the Trial by Water
“Put out the fire! My head is burning! Hans, where are you?”
In the midst of the women was Nele, who kept crying also:
“Let them throw me in with her!”
But the women did not suffer her to come near to Katheline.
A sharp wind came blowing in from the sea, and from the grey sky a fine hail fell dripping into the water of the canal. Now there was a boat moored by the side of the water, and this boat the executioner and his assistants commandeered in the name of His Royal Majesty. Then Katheline was ordered to step down into the boat. She obeyed at once, and the executioner was seen standing by her side and holding her securely. Then the provost raised the rod of justice, and the executioner threw Katheline into the canal. For a while she struggled, but soon sank, with one last cry: “Hans! Hans! Help!”
And the people said: “This woman was no witch.”
Thereafter certain men who were there jumped into the canal and dragged Katheline out again, senseless and rigid as one dead. And she was taken into a tavern near by, and placed in front of a bright fire. Nele took off her garments wringing wet as they were, meaning to put dry ones on her. After a while she regained consciousness, and cried out, all trembling and with her teeth chattering: “Hans! Give me a cloak of wool!”
But Katheline could not be warmed. And on the third day she died. And she was buried in the garden of the church.
And Nele, the orphan, went away into Holland, and dwelt at the house of Rosa van Auweghem.