“There is a restive donkey indeed,” said Spelle, “that won’t go on in spite of that good warning.”
Suddenly they heard a great noise of wheels and a cart leaping along and coming down the middle of the road.
“Stop it!” cried Spelle.
As the cart passed beside them, Spelle and his two catchpolls threw themselves on the donkey’s head.
“This cart is empty,” said one of the catchpolls.
“Lubber,” said Spelle, “do empty carts gallop about by night all alone? There is somebody in this cart a-hiding; light the lanterns, hold them up, I am going to look in it.”
The lanterns were lighted and Spelle climbed up on the cart, holding his own lamp; but scarcely had he looked than he uttered a great cry, and falling back, said:
“Michielkin! Michielkin! Jesu! have pity upon me!”
Then there rose up from the floor of the cart a man clad in white as pastry cooks are and holding in his hands two bloody feet.
Pieter de Roose, seeing the man stand up, illuminated by the lanterns, cried with the two catchpolls: