“Messire Bailiff, it is contrary to the laws and customs of the empire to put a choke-pear into the mouth of any that are being interrogated, for they are here to tell the truth, and for us to judge them from what they say. That is permitted only when the accused being condemned might, upon the scaffold, speak to the people, and in this way move them, and stir up popular feelings.”
“I thirst,” said Katheline, “give me to drink, Hans, my darling.”
“Ah!” said he, “thou dost suffer, accursed witch, sole cause of all the torments I am enduring; but in this torture chamber thou shalt undergo the pain of the candles, the strappado, the wooden splinters under the nails of thy feet and hands. They will make thee ride naked astride a coffin whose back will be sharp as a blade, and thou shalt confess that thou art not mad, but a foul witch to whom Satan hath given it in charge to work evil upon noble men. A drink!”
“Hans, my beloved,” said Katheline, “be not wroth with thy handmaiden! I suffer a thousand pangs for thee, my lord. Spare him, Messieurs the Judges. Give him a full goblet to drink, and keep but one drop for me. Hans, is it not yet the hour of the sea-eagle?”
The bailiff then said to Joos Damman:
“When thou didst kill Hilbert, what was the motive of this combat?”
“It was,” said Joos, “for a girl at Heyst we both wished to have.”
“A girl at Heyst!” cried Katheline, trying at all costs to rise up from her bench; “thou art deceiving me for another, traitor devil. Didst thou know that I was listening to thee behind the dyke when thou saidst that thou wouldst fain have all the money, which was Claes’s money? Without doubt it was to go and spend it with her in liquorishness and revelling! Alas! and I that would have given him my blood if he could have made gold of it! And all for another! Be accursed!”
But suddenly, weeping and trying to turn round on her bench of torture:
“Nay, Hans, say that thou wilt still love thy poor handmaid, and I shall scratch the earth with my fingers and find thee a treasure; aye, there is such; and I will go with the hazel twig that bends this way and that where there are metals; and I will find it and bring it back to thee; kiss me, darling, and thou shalt be rich; and we shall eat meat, and we shall drink beer every day; aye, aye, all these folk also drink beer; fresh, foaming beer. Oh! sirs, give me but one single drop; I am in the fire; Hans, I know well where there are hazel trees, but we must wait for the spring time.”