Messire Worst came at the noise: perceiving Ulenspiegel—his companions lit up by the red glare of the torches:
“What would you of us?” said he.
Ulenspiegel replied:
“This night we took, in his farm, the traitor Dierick Slosse, that brought the eighteen into an ambuscade. This is the man. The others are innocent menservants and maidservants. Then handing him a satchel:
“These florins,” said he, “were flourishing in flower pots in the traitor’s house: there are ten thousand.”
Messire Worst said to them:
“Ye did ill to leave your ship; but because of your good success pardon shall be granted to you. Welcome be the prisoners and the satchel of florins, and ye, gallant men, to whom I assign, after the laws and customs of the sea, a third of the prize: the second will be for the fleet, and another third for Monseigneur d’Orange; string me up the traitor incontinent.”
The Beggars having obeyed, they opened afterward a hole in the ice and threw the body of Dierick Slosse into it.
Messire Worst then said:
“Has grass sprung up around the ships that I hear hens cackling, sheep bleating, cows and oxen lowing?”