She was taken to the grand market of Damme by the torturer and his assistants. There she was made to mount the scaffold. In the square were assembled the provost, the herald, and the judges. The herald sounded his trumpet thrice, then turned towards the crowd and made the following announcement:
“The Council of Damme,” he cried, “having taken pity upon the woman Katheline, have decreed that punishment shall not be exacted to the full extremity of the rigour of our laws. Nevertheless, in witness that she is a sorceress, her hair shall be burned, she shall pay a fine of twenty carolus d’or, and she shall be banished from the territory of Damme for the space of three years, under penalty of losing one of her limbs.”
And at this rough gentleness the people broke into applause.
Then the torturer tied Katheline to the stake, placed on her shorn scalp a wig of tow, and held it in the fire. And the tow burned for a long time, and Katheline cried aloud and wept.
Then they released her, and she was put in a cart and taken away outside the territory of Damme. She could not walk at all, because of her feet that were burned.
XXVI
Ulenspiegel, meanwhile, had arrived in his wanderings at the fish-market at Liége. There he descried a tall young fellow carrying under his arm a net filled with all sorts of poultry, and another net also which he was rapidly filling with haddock, trout, eels, and pike.
Ulenspiegel recognized him as none other than his old friend Lamme Goedzak.
“What are you doing here, Lamme?” he said.