And all looked curiously on him as he sought, naked or all but naked as he was, to stiffen his will and courage against the heat of the fire.
At the same time Queen Marie was athirst on her bed of childbirth. She saw half a melon on a dish. Dragging herself out of bed, she seized this melon and left nothing of it.
Then by reason of the cold flesh of the melon, she fell into sweating and trembling, lay on the floor, and could not move hand or foot.
“Ah,” she said, “I might grow warm if someone could carry me to my bed.”
She heard then the poor sculptor crying:
“Cut off my feet!”
“Ah!” said Queen Marie, “is that a dog howling for my death?”
At this moment the sculptor, seeing about him none but the faces of enemies and Spaniards, thought upon Flanders, the land of men, folded his arms, and dragging his long chain behind him he went straight to the straw and burning faggots and standing upright upon them with arms still folded:
“Lo,” said he, “how the Flemish can die before Spanish butchers. Cut off their feet, not mine, but theirs, that they may run no more after murder! Long live Flanders! Flanders for ever and evermore!”