As he entered, a short, thick-set man, also wrapped in a cloak and hiding his hands in huge gloves, replied to the soldier.
“And who told you that he killed himself? That man no more committed suicide, I’ll be bound, than the roof of your cathedral set itself on fire.”
As the double-edged sword makes two wounds, this phrase gave birth to two answers.
“Our cathedral!” said Niels; “it is covered with copper now. It was that miserable Hans who set it on fire to make work for the miners, one of whom was his favorite Gill Stadt, whom you see lying yonder.”
“What the devil!” cried the soldier, in his turn; “do you dare tell me, the second musketeer in the Munkholm garrison, that that man did not blow out his brains!”
“He was murdered,” coldly replied the little fellow.
“Just listen to the oracle! Go along with you. Your little gray eyes can see no better than your hands do under the big gloves with which you cover them in the middle of the summer.”
“Soldier, pray to your patron saint that these hands may never leave their mark upon your face!”
“Oh!--enough of this!” cried the soldier, in a rage. Then, pausing suddenly, he said: “No, there must be no word of a duel before dead men.”
The little man growled a few words in a foreign tongue, and vanished.
A voice cried out: “He was found on Urchtal Sands.”
“On Urchtal Sands?” said the soldier; “Captain Dispolsen was to land there this morning, from Copenhagen.”
“Captain Dispolsen has not yet reached Munkholm,” said another voice.
“They say that Hans of Iceland haunts those sands just now,” added a fourth.
“Then it is possible that this may be the captain,” said the soldier, “if Hans was the murderer; for we all know that the Icelander murders in so devilish a fashion that his victims often seem to be suicides.”
“What sort of man is this Hans?” asked some one.
“Has nobody seen him, then?” put in a voice.
“Those who see him for the first time, see him for the last time also.”
“Hush!” said old Olly; “they say there are but three persons who ever exchanged human speech with him,--that reprobate of a Spiagudry, Widow Stadt, and--but he had a sad life and a sad death--that poor Gill, who lies yonder. Hush!”
“Now,” suddenly exclaimed the soldier, “I am sure that this is indeed Captain Dispolsen. I recognize the steel chain which our prisoner, old Schumacker, gave him when he went away.”