Then Halfred saw the shepherd standing above, on the cliff's edge; and he played a lovely melody upon his shepherd's pipe.
And at first he doubted whether he should ask this shepherd boy his question about the Gods, for he left women and boys unquestioned. And this shepherd seemed to him but a boy.
But as he climbed nearer to him he saw that the shepherd carried a spear, and a shepherd's sling, with which to kill wolves.
And the shepherd lad believed that this was a robber or a Berseker coming against him and his sheep.
And he chose out of his leather pouch a sharp heavy stone, and laid it in his sling, and held it ready to cast it.
Halfred held his left hand over the eye that remained to him, and looked upward with difficulty, dazzled, for just then the sun broke out through the mist clouds exactly above the head of the shepherd, who thus saw clearly the figure of the half naked man, with tangled floating hair and beard, who now raising the hammer threateningly ascended the hill. Upon a slab of stone, under a great ash tree, he stopped, and cried to the shepherd--
"Are there Gods, shepherd boy? Sayest thou yes, then thou must die."
"Gods, there are not," replied the shepherd, in a clear voice, "but wise men have taught me there lives one Almighty Triune God, Creator of Heaven and Earth."
The man with the hammer paused for a moment as if meditating.
Such an answer had he never received.