And Lamme went back to Ulenspiegel, to whom he said, towards noon:
“I am a prophet already; the sky grows black, the wind breathes stormily: a warm rain is falling; already there is a foot of water upon the ice.”
At night he cried, rejoicing:
“The North Sea is swollen: ’tis the hour of the flood tide; the high waves rolling into the Zuyderzee break up the ice, which splinters in great fragments and leaps up on the ships; it flashes sparkles of light; here comes the hail. The admiral bids us to withdraw from before Amsterdam, and that with as much water as our greatest ship can draw. Here we are in the harbour of Enckhuyse. The sea is freezing afresh. I am a fine prophet, and it is a miracle from God.”
And Ulenspiegel said:
“Drink we to Him, and blessings on Him.”
And the winter passed, and summer came.
XIX
In mid-August, when hens, fed full with grain, remain deaf to the call of the cock trumpeting his loves, Ulenspiegel said to his sailors and soldiers: