"O jarl," said Tostig the Red, "well that thou didst order us to bring provisions, also, for our first needs. Shall we not now go on into the forest and find a place where we may kindle a fire?"
"O Tostig," said the jarl, "Ben Ezra is our guide. This is his country. What sayest thou, O Jew?"
"Only this," replied Ben Ezra; "that we are upon Mount Carmel, and that the forests thereof are deep. We are safe if we are prudent. It is a wilderness into which not many come at any time, but there are villages and cities not far away."
"Lead on thou, then," said Ulric. "Let every man bring all his burden. We will keep up strong hearts, and we will see to what this strange coming on shore will take us."
They had need of cheerful words from their jarl, for upon them all was a shadow deeper than any of the shadows of the forest. Their faces were dark, but among them all was there no face like that of Lysias, the Greek. There was no light in it, but rather a bitter sullenness.
"Sapphira! Sapphira!" he muttered, walking apart from the rest. "Am I indeed nearing thee? Am I to find thee? Am I, then, to love thee again or am I to slay thee? Thou shalt not live to be the bondslave of a Roman, even though he be a prince and a ruler!"
Ulric the Jarl heard him. It was as if he had been spoken to concerning the Hebrew maiden whom he had seen with Hilda.
"I think that she is somewhere in this land to which I have been guided," he thought. "I will go on and I may find her. This forest is a dense cover of this mountain. I shall be glad to look upon that which is beyond it."
Ben Ezra led onward rapidly, but the way by which he went grew steeper. They came out at last, much heated by their heavy burdens, upon a level place, where were no trees, and here he halted.
"Here let the fire be made," he said to the jarl. "But if thou and Sigurd will walk with me a little distance further ye will see something."