Next day the bailiff and the aldermen gave their sentence upon Katheline, who was condemned to undergo the trial by water in the Bruges Canal. Floating, she should be burned as a witch; going to the bottom and dying, she should be regarded as dying like a Christian, and as such should be interred in the garden of the church, which is the graveyard.
The day after, Katheline, holding a wax taper in her hand, barefooted and clad in a chemise of black linen, was brought to the bank of the canal, all along by the trees, in grand procession. Before her marched, singing the prayers for the dead, the dean of Notre Dame, his vicars, the beadle carrying the cross; and behind, the bailiffs of Damme, the aldermen, the clerks and recorders, the constables of the commune, the provost, the executioner and his two assistants. Upon the banks there was a great crowd of women weeping and men growling, in pity for Katheline, who walked as a lamb suffering herself to be led she knew not whither, and always saying: “Take away the fire, my head burns! Hans, where art thou?”
In the midst of the women Nele cried: “I want to be thrown in with her.” But the women did not suffer her to come near to Katheline.
A sharp wind blew from the sea; from the gray sky a fine hail was falling into the water of the canal; a bark was there, which the executioner and his men seized in the name of His Majesty the king. At their command, Katheline went into it; the executioner was seen, standing in it, and at the signal of the provost lifting his wand of justice, he cast Katheline into the canal: she struggled, but not for long, and went to the bottom, having cried out: “Hans! Hans! help!”
And the people said: “This woman is no witch.”
Men plunged into the canal and pulled Katheline out from it, unconscious and rigid as a corpse. Then she was brought into a tavern and placed before a great fire; Nele took off her clothes and her wet linen, to give her others; when she came back to herself, she said, trembling and chattering her teeth:
“Hans, give me a woollen cloak.”
And Katheline could not get back her warmth. And she died on the third day. And she was interred in the garden of the church.
And Nele, orphaned, departed to the land of Holland, to Rosa van Auweghen.