"Svip, the son of Leiknar, erred to his death," said the jarl. "The fault was his own. But this lion was first smitten upon the stone of sacrifice. What sayest thou, O Jew; is there in this any offense to the god of this place?"
"There is no god," responded Ben Ezra. "Here are but idols, and upon their altars couch the beasts of the field. We may go forward. Who needeth to fear gods of stone, which are the work of men's hands and which neither walk nor speak?"
"The lions have no god," said Lysias.
"Let him win it or perish!"
"I would not fear him greatly if they had," said an old viking, "but if he were a man, with a sword in his hand, then I would know what to do with him."
Some of the Saxons then declared that they knew what to do with the skin of such a lion, and they remained to take it off rather than go any nearer to the stone god behind the place of sacrifice. Grand and huge was he, the idol of this broken temple of old time. He was the head of a man upon the body of a beast, carved out of more stones than one, and he crouched there, looking at them with a stern and terrible expression.
"I think," said Ben Ezra, "that he is one of the forgotten gods of the Sidonians. They will not set him up in Egypt, but he was like Jupiter."