The Legend of Ulenspiegel Volume Ii Part 1

The Legend of Ulenspiegel.

Vol. II.

by Charles de Coster.

BOOK III

I

He goes away, the Silent One, G.o.d guideth him.

The two counts have been seized already; Alba promises the Silent One lenity and pardon if he will present himself before him.

At this news, Ulenspiegel said to Lamme: "The Duke summons, at the instance of Dubois, the procurator general, the Prince of Orange, Ludwig his brother, De Hoogstraeten, Van den Bergh, Culembourg, de Brederode, and other friends of the Prince's, to appear before him within thrice fourteen days, promising them good justice and grace. Listen, Lamme, and hearken: One day a Jew of Amsterdam summoned one of his enemies to come down into the street; the summoner was on the pavement and the summoned at a window.

"'Come down, then,' said the summoner to the summoned, 'and I will give thee such a cuff on the head with my fist that it will tumble into thy breast, and thou shalt look through thy ribs like a thief through the bars of his prison.'

"The summoned replied: 'Even if thou wast to promise me an hundredfold more, I would not come down even then.' And so may Orange and the others answer."

And they did so, refusing to appear. Egmont and de Hoorn did not follow their example. And weakness in duty evokes the hour of G.o.d and fate.

II

At this time were beheaded on the Horse Market at Brussels the sires d'Andelot, the sons of Battemberg and other renowned and valiant lords, that had wished to seize Amsterdam by surprise.

And while they were going to execution, being eighteen in number, and singing hymns, the drummers drummed before and behind, all along the way.

And the Spanish troopers escorting them and carrying blazing torches burned their bodies with them all over. And when they writhed because of the pain, the troopers would say: "What now, Lutherans, does that hurt then to be burned so soon?"

And he that had betrayed them was called Dierick Slosse, who brought them to Enkhuyse, that was still Catholic, to hand them over to the duke's catchpolls.

And they died valiantly.

And the king inherited.

III

"Didst thou see him go by?" said Ulenspiegel, clad as a woodman, to Lamme similarly accoutred. "Didst thou see the foul duke with his forehead flat above like an eagle's, and his long beard like a rope end dangling from a gallows? May G.o.d strangle him with it! Didst thou see that spider with his long hairy legs that Satan vomiting spat out upon our country? Come, Lamme, come; we will fling stones into his web...."

"Alas!" said Lamme, "we shall be burned alive."

"Come to Groenendal, my dear friend; come to Groenendal, there is a n.o.ble cloister whither His Spiderly Dukishness goes to pray to the G.o.d of peace to allow him to perfect his work, which is to rejoice his black spirits wallowing in carrion. We are in Lent, and it is only blood from which His Dukishness has no mind to fast. Come, Lamme, there are five hundred armed hors.e.m.e.n roundabout the house of Ohain; three hundred footmen have set out in little bands and are entering the forest of Soignes.

"Presently, when Alba is at his devotions, we shall run out upon him, and having taken him, we shall put him in a good iron cage and send him to the prince."

But Lamme, s.h.i.+vering in anguish:

"A great risk, my son," he said to Ulenspiegel. "A great risk! I would follow you in this emprise were not my legs so weak, if my belly was not so blown out by reason of the thin sour beer they drink in this town of Brussels."

This discourse was held in a hole dug in the earth in a wood, in the middle of the undergrowth. Suddenly, looking through the leaves as though out of a burrow, they saw the yellow and red coats of the Duke's troopers, whose weapons glittered in the sun and who were going afoot through the wood.

"We are betrayed," said Ulenspiegel.

When he saw the troopers no more, he ran at top speed as far as Ohain. The troopers let him pa.s.s without noticing him, because of his woodcutter's clothes and the load of wood he carried on his back. There he found the hors.e.m.e.n waiting; he spread the news, all scattered and escaped except the sire de Bausart d'Armentieres who was taken. As for the footmen that were coming from Brussels, they could not find a single one.

And it was a cowardly traitor in the regiment of the Sieur de Likes that betrayed them all.

The Sire de Bausart paid cruelly for the others.

Ulenspiegel went, his heart beating wildly with anguish, to see his cruel punishment in the Cattle Market at Brussels.

And poor d'Armentieres, put upon the wheel, received thirty-seven blows of an iron bar on legs, arms, feet, and hands, which were broken to pieces one by one, for the murderers desired to see him suffer terribly.

And he received the thirty-seventh on the breast, and of that one he died.

IV

On a June day, bright and sweet, there was erected at Brussels, on the marketplace in front of the City Hall, a scaffold covered with black draperies, and hard by two tall stakes with iron spiked ends. Upon the scaffold were two black cus.h.i.+ons and a little table on which there was a silver crucifix.

And on this scaffold were put to death by the sword the n.o.ble counts of Egmont and of Hoorn. And the king inherited.

And the amba.s.sador of Francois, the first of that name, said, speaking of Egmont:

"I have just seen the head cut from off the man that twice caused France to tremble."

And the heads of the counts were set on the iron spikes.

And Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:

"The bodies and the blood are covered with black cloth. Blessed be they that shall hold their heart high and the sword straight in the black days that are at hand!"