But they had not thought that they could hear from afar the cries of the victim, and through the windows see the flame of the fire.
Katheline went roaming about the town, nodding her head and saying:
"Make a hole, the soul would fain come forth!"
At nine o'clock Claes was brought out from the prison, in his shirt, his hands bound behind his back. In accordance with the sentence, the pyre was prepared in the street of Notre Dame around a stake set up before the doors of the Townhall. The executioner and his assistants had not yet made an end of piling up the wood.
Claes, in the midst of his gaolers, waited patiently till this task was finished, while the provost, on horseback, and the liveried men of the bailiwick, and the nine lansquenets summoned from Bruges, could barely keep within bounds of respect the people growling and unruly.
All said, it was sheer cruelty to murder thus in his old age, unjustly, a poor fellow so kind hearted, compassionate, and stout hearted in toil.
Suddenly they all knelt down and prayed. The bells of Notre Dame were tolling for the dead.
Katheline also was in the crowd of the common people, in the first row, and all beside herself. Looking at Claes and the pyre, she said, nodding her head:
"The fire! the fire! Make a hole; the soul would fain escape!"
Soetkin and Nele, hearing the bells tolling, both crossed themselves. But Ulenspiegel did not, saying that he would no longer worship God after the fashion of murderers. And he ran about the cottage, seeking to break down doors and to leap out through windows; but all were guarded.
Suddenly Soetkin cried out, hiding her face in her apron:
The three afflicted ones saw indeed in the sky a great whirl of smoke, all black. It was the smoke of the pyre on which was Claes bound to a stake, and which the executioner had just set fire to in three places in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Claes looked about him, and not perceiving Soetkin and Ulenspiegel in the crowd, he was glad, thinking they would not behold him suffering.
No other sound was to be heard but the voice of Claes praying, the wood crackling, men growling, women weeping, Katheline saying:--"Take away the fire, make a hole: the soul would fain escape."--and the bells of Notre Dame tolling for the dead.