“What’s that, Jens!” cried the rector angrily.  “When did I dig here?”

Paying no heed to his, Morten Bruus called the men to the corner in question.  The earth here was covered by some withered cabbage stalks, broken twigs, and other brush which he pushed aside hurriedly.  The work began anew.

I stood by the rector talking calmly with him about the punishment we could mete out to the dastardly accuser, when one of the men suddenly cried out with an oath.  We looked toward them; there lay a hat half buried in the loose earth.  “We have found him,” cried Bruus.  “That is Niels’s hat; I would know it anywhere.”

My blood seemed turned to ice.  All my hopes dashed to the ground.  “Dig!  Dig!” cried the bloodthirsty accuser, working himself with all his might.  I looked at the rector.  He was ghastly pale, staring with wide-open eyes at the horrible spot.

Another shot!  A hand was stretched up through the earth as if to greet the workers.  “See there!” screamed Bruus.  “He is holding out his hand to me.  Wait a little, Brother Niels!  You will soon be avenged!”

The entire corpse was soon uncovered.  It was the missing man.  His face was not recognizable, as decomposition had begun, and the nose was broken and laid flat by a blow.  But all the garments, even to the shirt with his name woven into it, were known to those who stood there.  In one ear was a leaden ring, which, as we all knew, Niels Bruus had worn for many years.

“Now, priest,” cried Morten Bruus, “come and lay your hand on this dead man if you dare to!”

“Almighty God!” sighed the rector, looking up to heaven, “Thou art my witness that I am innocent.  I struck him, that I confess, and I am bitterly sorry for it.  But he ran away.  God Almighty alone knows who buried him here.”

“Jens Larsen knows also,” cried Bruus, “and I may find more witnesses.  Judge!  You will come with me to examine his servants.  But first of all I demand that you shall arrest this wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Merciful God, how could I doubt any longer?  The truth was clear to all of us.  But I was ready to sink into the earth in my shock and horror.  I was about to say to the rector that he must prepare to follow me, when he himself spoke to me, pale and trembling like an aspen leaf.  “Appearances are against me,” he said, “but this is the work of the devil and his angels.  There is One above who will bring my innocence to light.  Come, judge, I will await my fate in fetters.  Comfort my daughter.  Remember that she is your betrothed bride.”

He had scarcely uttered the words when I heard a scream and a fall behind us.  It was my beloved who lay unconscious on the ground.  I thought at first that she was dead, and God knows I wished that I could lie there dead beside her.  I raised her in my arms, but her father took her from me and carried her into the house.  I was called to examine the wound on the dead man’s head.  The cut was not deep, but it had evidently fractured the skull, and had plainly been made by a blow from a spade or some similar blunt instrument.