"Have you ever seen his wife?" asked Ulenspiegel.
"She sinned with him once," the woman answered, "and was condemned
therefor to a cruel punishment. She knows that he goes a-seafaring in
the cause of the heretics, and this is a cruel thought for a Christian
heart. But protect him, I pray you, if he is attacked, and nurse him
if he is wounded: his wife ordered me thus to entreat you."
"Lamme is my brother and my friend," answered Ulenspiegel.
"Ah!" she said. "But why will you not return to the bosom of our Holy
Mother Church?"
"She eats up her children," answered Ulenspiegel. And he departed.
But one morning in March, while still the cold winds of winter kept
the ice frozen, so that the ship of the Beggarmen could not make away,
Ulenspiegel came again to the tavern. And the pretty baesine said to
him (and there was great emotion and sorrow in her voice):
"Poor Lamme! Poor Ulenspiegel!"
"Why do you pity us so?" he asked her.
"Alas! alas!" she cried. "Why will you not believe in the Mass? And
you did, you would go straight to Paradise without a doubt, and I
might be able to save you in this life also."
Seeing her go to the door and listen there attentively, Ulenspiegel
said to her:
"Is it the snow that you hear falling?"
"No," she said.
"What then?"
"It is death that comes like a thief in the night."
"Death," exclaimed Ulenspiegel. "I do not understand you. Come back
and tell me."
"They are there," she said.
"Who are?"
"Who?" she said. "Why, the soldiers of Simonen Bol, who are about to
come in the name of the Duke and throw themselves upon you all. And
if they treat you well while you are here, it is only as men treat
the oxen they mean to kill. Oh why," she cried all in tears, "why
did I not know all this before, so that I could have warned you!"
"You must not cry," said Ulenspiegel, "and you must stay where
you are!"
"Do not betray me," she said.
Ulenspiegel went out of the house, ran as fast as he could, and went
round to all the booths and taverns in the place, whispering to the
sailors and soldiers these words: "The Spaniards are coming."
At that they ran every one to the ship, and prepared with all the
haste they knew whatever things were necessary for battle. Then they
waited for the evening. While they were waiting thus, Ulenspiegel
said to Lamme:
"Do you see that pretty-looking woman on the quay there, in a black
dress embroidered with scarlet?"
"It's all one to me," answered Lamme. "I am cold and I want to go
to sleep."
And he threw his great cloak around his head, and became like a man
who was deaf.
But presently Ulenspiegel recognized the woman and cried out to her
from the vessel:
"Would you like to come with us?"
"Even to the death," she answered, "but I cannot...."
Then she came nearer to the ship.
"Take this ointment," she said. "It is for you and that fat friend
of yours who goes to sleep when he ought to be awake."
And she withdrew herself, crying:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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