The executioner obeyed. What hair was left in his armpits crackled and smoked in the flame.
Ulenspiegel cried out, and Soetkin, weeping, said:
"Confess the concealment and thou shalt be set at liberty. Confess for him, woman."
And Ulenspiegel said: "Who will throw the fishmonger into the fire that burneth for ever?"
Soetkin made sign with her head that she had nothing to say. Ulenspiegel ground and gnashed his teeth, and Soetkin looked at him with haggard eyes and all in tears.
Nevertheless, when the executioner, having blown out the candles, set the burning brazier under Ulenspiegel's feet, she cried:
"Master judges, have pity upon him: he knows not what he saith."
"Why doth he not know what he saith?" asked the bailiff, craftily.
"Do not question her, master judges; ye see full well that she is out of her wits with torment. The fishmonger lied," said Ulenspiegel.
"Wilt thou say the same as he, woman?" asked the bailiff.
Soetkin made sign with her head to say yes.
"Burn the fishmonger!" cried Ulenspiegel.
Soetkin held her peace, raising her clenched fist into the air as though to curse.
Yet seeing the brazier burn up more fiercely under her son's feet, she cried:
"O Lord God! Madame Mary that art in heaven, put an end to this torment! Have pity! Take the brazier away!"
"The fishmonger!" groaned Ulenspiegel again.
And he vomited blood in great gushes through nose and mouth, and letting his head fall, hung suspended above the coals.
"He is dead, my poor orphan! They have killed him! Ah! him, too. Take away this brazier, master judges! Let me take him into my arms to die also, I, too, to die with him. Ye know I cannot flee on my broken feet."
"Give the widow her son," said the bailiff.
The executioner unbound Ulenspiegel, and laid him all naked and covered with blood upon Soetkin's knees, while the barber surgeon put back his bones in their sockets.
All the while Soetkin embraced Ulenspiegel, and said, weeping:
"Son, poor martyr! If the judges will, I shall heal thee, I; but awaken, Thyl, my son! Master judges, if ye have killed him on me, I shall go to His Majesty; for ye have done contrary to all laws and justice, and ye shall see what one poor woman can do against wicked men. But, sirs, leave us free together. We have nothing but our two selves in the world, poor wretches on whom the hand of God has been heavy."