“Hold thy tongue, witch, thou wilt burn me.” Then speaking to the bailiff and the aldermen: “Look at me, I am no devil; I have flesh and bones, blood and water. I drink and eat, digest and void like yourselves; my skin is like yours, my foot likewise; tormentor, take my boots off, for I cannot budge with my feet bound.”
The tormentor did so, not without fear.
“Look,” said Joos, showing his white feet: “are those cloven feet, devil’s feet? As for my paleness, is there none of you that is pale like me? I see more than three among you. But the sinner is not I, but verily this ugly witch, and her daughter, the evil accuser. Whence did she have the money she lent to Hilbert; whence came those florins that she gave him? Was it not the devil that paid her to accuse and bring death to men of noble birth and guiltless? It is those twain that should be asked who killed the dog in the yard, who dug the hole and went off leaving it empty, doubtless to hide the stolen treasure in another place. Soetkin the widow had placed no trust in me, for she never knew me, but in them, and saw them every day. It is they that stole the Emperor’s property.”
The clerk wrote, and the bailiff said to Katheline:
“Woman, hast thou naught to say for thy defence?”
Katheline, looking upon Joos Damman, said most amorously:
“It is the hour of the sea-eagle. I have Hilbert’s hand, Hans, my beloved. They say that thou wilt give me back the seven hundred carolus. Take away the fire! Take away the fire!” cried she after that. “Give me to drink! to drink! my head burns. God and the angels are eating apples in the sky.”
And she lost consciousness.
“Loosen her from the bench of torment,” said the bailiff.
The tormentor and his assistants obeyed. And she was seen staggering and with feet swollen out, for the tormentor had pulled the cords too tight.