“Take away the fire; my head burns!”
And she looked on Joos Damman with tender love.
And he looked at her with hate and contempt.
And the lords and gentlemen his friends, having been summoned to Damme, were all present as witnesses before the tribunal.
Then the bailiff spake and said:
“Nele, the girl who defends her mother Katheline with such great and courageous affection, found in the pocket stitched in her mother’s jacket, a jacket for feast days, a note signed ‘Joos Damman.’ Among the belongings taken from the corpse of Hilbert Ryvish I found in the dead man’s satchel another letter addressed to him by the said Joos Damman, the defendant here present before you. I have kept both these letters in my custody, in order that at the appropriate moment, which is the present, you might judge of this man’s obstinacy and acquit or condemn him in accordance with law and justice. Here is the parchment found in the satchel; I have never touched it, and know not whether it is legible or not.”
The judges were then in great perplexity.
The bailiff endeavoured to undo the parchment ball; but it was in vain, and Joos Damman laughed.
An alderman said:
“Let us put the ball in water, and then before the fire. If there is in it any secret of adhesion, the fire and the water will melt it.”