Ulenspiegel replied:
“By the terms, the townsfolk redeemed their lives, and the town from pillage, for the sum of two hundred and forty thousand florins. They must pay one hundred thousand florins down in twelve days, and the rest three months after. The women have been ordered to retire into the churches. They are about to begin the massacre, beyond a doubt. Dost thou hear them nailing up the scaffolds and erecting the gallows?”
“Ah! we are to die!” said Nele; “I am hungry.”
“Aye,” said Lamme low to Ulenspiegel, “the dukeling of blood has said that being famished we shall be more docile when we are brought out to die.”
“I am so hungry!” said Nele.
That night soldiers came and distributed bread enough for six men.
“Three hundred Walloon soldiers have been hanged in the marketplace,” said they. “It will soon be your turn. There was always a matrimony between the Beggars and the Gallows.”
The next night they came again with their bread for six men.
“Four high burgesses,” said they, “have been beheaded. Two hundred and forty-nine soldiers have been bound together two by two and cast into the sea. The crabs will be fat this year. You do not look well, you folk, since the seventh of July that saw you come here. They are gluttons and drunkards, these dwellers in the Low Countries; we Spaniards, we have enough with two figs for our supper.”
“That is why, then,” replied Ulenspiegel, “you must needs, everywhere in the townsfolks’ houses, have four meals of meats, poultry, creams, wines, and preserves; that ye must have milk to wash the bodies of your mustachos and wine to bathe your horses’ feet?”