“Tell us now how didst find her again,” asked Ulenspiegel.
Lamme replied, speaking in jerks:
“I was sleeping, already much better. All at once a dull noise. A piece of wood struck the ship. A skiff. A sailor hurries up at the noise: ‘Who goes there?’ A soft voice, her voice, my son, her voice, her sweet voice: ‘Friends.’ Then a deeper voice: ‘Long live the Beggar: the commander of the flyboat Johannah to speak with Lamme Goedzak.’ The sailor drops the ladder. The moon was shining. I see a man’s shape coming up on to the deck: strong hips, round knees, wide pelvis; I say to myself: ‘a pretended man’: I feel as it might be a rose opening and touching my cheek: her mouth, my son, and I hear her saying to me, she—dost thou follow?—herself, covering me with kisses and with tears: ’twas liquid perfumed fire falling on my body: ‘I know I am sinning; but I love thee, my husband! I have sworn before God: I am breaking my oath, my man, my poor man! I have come often without daring to come nigh thee; the sailor at last allowed me: I dressed thy wound, thou knewest me not; but I have healed thee; be not wroth, my man! I have followed thee, but I am afraid; he is upon this ship, let me go; if he saw me he would curse me and I should burn in the everlasting fire!’ She kissed me again, weeping and happy, and went away in spite of me, despite my tears: thou hadst bound me hand and foot, my son, but now....”
And saying this he bent mightily to his oars: ’twas like the taut string of a bow that launches the arrow forthright.
As they approached the flyboat, Lamme said:
“There she is, upon the deck, playing the viol, my darling wife with her hair of golden brown, with the brown eyes, the cheeks still fresh and young, the bare round arms, the white hands. Leap onward, skiff, over the sea!”
The captain of the flyboat, seeing the skiff coming up and Lamme rowing like a demon, had a ladder dropped from the deck. When Lamme was by it, he leapt from the skiff on to the ladder at the risk of tumbling into the sea, thrusting the skiff three fathoms behind him and more; and climbing like a cat up to the deck, ran to his wife, who swooning with joy, kissed and embraced him, saying:
“Lamme! come not to take me: I have sworn to God, but I love thee. Ah! dear husband!”
Nele cried out:
“It is Calleken Huybrechts, the pretty Calleken.”