"No," said the magistrate, in a positive tone, "I cannot for a moment admit it. A tale in which a spirit or a demon is the principal actor! In this age it is too absurd!"
At that moment I made a discovery; I drew from the midst of a bush a stick, one end of which was stained with blood. From its position it seemed as if it had been thrown hastily away; there had certainly been no attempt at concealment.
"Here is the weapon," I cried, "with which the deed was done!"
The magistrate took it immediately from my hand, and examined it.
"Here," I said, pointing downwards, "is the direct line of flight taken by the prisoner, and he must have flung the stick away in terror as he ran."
"It is an improvised weapon," said the magistrate, "cut but lately from a tree, and fashioned so as to fit the hand and be used with effect."
I, in my turn, then examined the weapon, and was struck by its resemblance to the branch I had myself cut the previous night during the watch I kept upon the ruffians. I spoke of the resemblance, and said that it looked to me as if it were the self-same stick I had shaped with my knife.
"Do you remember," asked the magistrate, "what you did with it after your suspicions were allayed?"
"No," I replied, "I have not the slightest remembrance what I did with it. I could not have carried it home with me, or I should have seen it this morning before I left my house. I have no doubt that, after my mind was at ease as to the intentions of the ruffians, I flung it aside into the woods, having no further use for it. When the men set out to perpetrate the robbery they must have stumbled upon the branch, and, appreciating the pains I had bestowed upon it, took it with them. There appears to be no other solution to their possession of it."
"It is the only solution," said the magistrate.