The Legend of Ulenspiegel Volume I Part 44

The executioner replied:

"They are all here."

The judges, having consulted, decided that, in order to come at the truth, they should begin with the woman.

"For," said one of the sheriffs, "there is no son so cruel or hard hearted as to see his mother suffer without making confession of the crime and so to deliver her; the same will do any mother, were she a tigress at heart, for her offspring."

Speaking to the executioner, the bailiff said:

"Make the woman sit in the chair and put the baguettes on her hands and her feet."

The executioner obeyed.

"Oh, do not do that, Messieurs Judges!" cried Ulenspiegel. "Bind me in her place, break my fingers and my toes, but spare the widow."

"The fishmonger," said Soetkin. "I have hate and force."

Ulenspiegel seemed livid pale, trembling, beside himself, and held his peace.

The baguettes were little rods of boxwood, placed between each finger and toe, touching the bone, and joined together with strings by an instrument so craftily designed that the executioner could, at the behest of the judge, squeeze all the fingers together, strip the bones of their flesh, grind them terribly, or give the victim only a slight pain.

He put the baguettes on Soetkin's hands and feet.

"Tighten," said the bailiff.

He did so cruelly.

Then the bailiff, addressing himself to Soetkin:

"Discover to me," said he, "the place where the carolus are hidden."

"I do not know it," she replied, groaning.

"Harder," said he.

Ulenspiegel twisted his arms that were bound behind his back to be rid of the rope and so come to Soetkin's aid.

"Do not tighten them, messieurs judges," said he, "do not tighten them, these be but woman's bones, thin and brittle. A bird could break them with its beak. Do not tighten them, sirs--master executioner, I do not speak to you, for you must needs be obedient to these gentlemen's orders. O do not bid him tighten them; have pity!"

"The fishmonger," said Soetkin.

And Ulenspiegel held his peace.

However, seeing that the executioner was locking the baguettes tighter still, he cried out again:

"Pity, sirs!" he said. "Ye are breaking the widow's fingers that she needeth to work withal. Alas! her feet! Will she never walk again now? Pity, sirs!"

"Thou shalt come to an ill end, fishmonger," cried Soetkin.

And the bones crackled and the blood from her feet fell in little drops.

Ulenspiegel looked at all this, and trembling with anguish and with rage, he said:

"A woman's bones, do not break them, sirs!"

"The fishmonger," groaned Soetkin.

And her voice was low and stifled like the voice of a ghost.

Ulenspiegel trembled and cried out:

"Master judges, her hands are bleeding and her feet, too. The widow's bones are broken, broken!"

The barber surgeon touched them with his finger, and Soetkin uttered a loud scream.

"Confess for her," said the bailiff to Ulenspiegel.

But Soetkin looked at him with eyes like the eyes of the dead, wide open and staring. And he knew he could not speak, and he wept and said nothing.

But the bailiff said next:

"Since this woman is gifted with a man's fort.i.tude, we must try her courage before the torments of her son."

Soetkin heard nothing, for she had lost her senses by reason of the great agony she had suffered.

They brought her back to consciousness with much vinegar. Then Ulenspiegel was stripped naked before the widow's eyes. The executioner shaved his head and his whole body, so as to spy that he had no wicked spell on him. Then he perceived on his back the little black mark he carried from his birth. He thrust a long needle into it several times; but as the blood came, he decided that there was no sorcery in the mark. At the bailiff's order, the hands of Ulenspiegel were tied with two cords running over a pulley fixed to the roof so that the executioner at the judges' pleasure could hoist him up and let him drop with a brutal jerk; which he did nine times, having first hung a weight of twenty-five pounds on each foot.

At the ninth time, the skin of his wrists and ankles tore, and the bones of his legs began to come out of their sockets.

"Confess," said the bailiff.

"No," replied Ulenspiegel.

Soetkin looked at her son and could find no strength either to cry out or to speak; only she stretched forth her arms, fluttering her bleeding hands and showing thus that they must make an end of this torment.

The executioner ran Ulenspiegel up and down yet again. And the skin of his wrists and ankles was torn still more; and the bones of his legs came out of their sockets further still; but he uttered no cry.

Soetkin wept and fluttered her bleeding hands.

"Confess the concealment," said the bailiff, "and you shall have pardon for it."

"The fishmonger hath need of pardon," answered Ulenspiegel.

"Wilt thou mock thy judges?" said one of the sheriffs.

"Mock? Alas!" replied Ulenspiegel, "I but feign to mock, believe me."

Soetkin then saw the executioner, who, at the bailiff's order, was blowing up a brazier of red coals, and an a.s.sistant who was lighting two candles. She would fain have risen up on her murdered feet, but fell back to a sitting posture, and exclaiming: