The carriage passed through the village, and did not stop until it reached the cottage which Jörgen and Ebbe had occupied conjointly. Here the judge got out, and after saying a few words to the smith, he entered the house.
'Now, Ebbe,' said the smith, 'you must get out too; you are at home here. We shall have a legal examination, as his honour has just very properly declared.'
Ebbe made no reply; he seemed to have fallen into a state of speechless apathy. He descended from the carriage, and followed the smith into the first of the two rooms into which the hut was divided.
On entering the cottage, they found the judge, and two fishermen who had been summoned as witnesses, already seated near the table. Ebbe cast a rapid and reconnoitring look around him; he perceived that everything was in its usual place; it was not the room that had changed in these eight days.
'Place yourself at the end of the table,' said the judge. 'Listen to what will be said, and answer minutely and truthfully the questions we shall put to you. Speak first, smith. Let us hear what you have to say.'
Not to fatigue the reader with the smith's long-winded story, we shall as briefly as possible relate the substance of his communication.
However important it was to Ebbe to maintain inviolable secresy relative to the mate's hidden treasure, he had let fall some words which had been caught up by the smith, and which, giving rise to some conjectures and suspicions, caused the clear-sighted man to watch narrowly the movements of the two young fishermen. On the same day that Jörgen and Ebbe had left their home at such an early hour, the smith had borrowed a horse from one of his neighbours, and set out in pursuit of them, although he took all possible pains to avoid being seen by them. Jörgen had previously given out that he was going to take a holiday to visit his aunt at Oxby.
When the smith had followed the two wayfarers as far as Aale church, and assured himself that they were really going to the place mentioned, he quitted the footpath, which, leading through the open heath, would have made him run the risk of being observed, and rode another way until he reached the cross road near Oxby church, and the shades of evening began to fall. The fishermen had evidently taken a considerable time to cross the wide heath. The smith had waited long, and had ridden around the church before he saw Ebbe and Jörgen looking for the spot with the three stones.
It was his horse that Ebbe had heard neigh, but, as we have seen, he had not sufficiently followed up the circumstance. In consequence of this neglect on his part, the smith became acquainted with all that was going on; for when it grew darker he ventured nearer, got over the wall, and crept on his hands and knees close to the place where Ebbe was digging. Arrived there, he could hear every word that was spoken while the work proceeded. When they left the wall of the churchyard, he followed them at some distance along the path that led to the gravel-pits, and he had seen Jörgen fall. Ebbe had not recognized the voice of the smith in that which called after him, nor had he observed that Harfiz was carrying Jörgen in his arms to the nearest dwelling.
'Thus it all happened,' said the plaintiff, in the corrupt language in which he spoke. 'Ebbe cannot deny a word that I have said. I know all that passed; I saw and heard all. I took up the spade with which he had struck Jörgen, and, to wind up, your honour has only to make inquiry here to be convinced of the truth of what I assert. Here you behold the man who can corroborate my statement.'