In very deed, a red flame climbed up the sky in the midst of the smoke.
“He is about to die,” said the widow. “Lord God, have pity upon the soul of the innocent. Where is the king, that I may rip out his heart with my nails?”
The bells of Notre Dame were tolling for the dead.
Soetkin heard Claes again utter a loud cry, but she saw not his body writhing from the torment of the flame, nor his face twisting, nor his head that he turned every way and beat against the wood of the stake. The people continued to cry out and to hiss; women and boys threw stones, and all heard Claes saying, from the midst of the flame and the smoke:
“Soetkin! Thyl!”
And his head fell forward on his breast like a head of lead.
And a lamentable shrill and piercing cry was heard coming from out of Katheline’s cottage. Then none heard aught else, save the poor witless woman nodding her head and saying: “The soul would fain escape!”
Claes was dead. The pyre having burned out sank down at the foot of the stake. And the poor body, all blackened, stayed on it hanging by the neck.
And the bells of Notre Dame tolled for the dead.