"Touch them not," said Ulric. "Thou art wise. I think that any comrade of theirs who may come to see will believe this to be the work of the officers of the law."
"In that were better security for aught that we may will to hide," said Ben Ezra. "Seest thou now, O jarl? This cave is deep. We will go in further."
"There are bones to build heaps with," replied the jarl. "Here hath been a massacre, but these are dry and the slaying was long ago."
Gloomy and terrible was that deep cave in Carmel, with its dark shadows and its whitening skeletons. Among its corners the Jew was searching, holding forward his torch.
"A soft spot in the floor here," he said. "We will dig with our knives. We may come to it again by sure marks, for behind it is the solid rock and at its right a fathom and a half is yonder broken altar."
"Knowest thou," asked Ulric, "to what god belongeth this altar? Was it thine?"
"Nay," said the Jew, "he hath no altars in the caves, but only in the temple at Jerusalem. In the old time was Carmel a stronghold of the Philistines. There have been many gods among these mountains. They were all destroyed by Jehovah."
"I would, then, that he might have a care for these treasures of ours," said Ulric, digging rapidly with his broad dagger. "Go deeper into the earth. Make it wider. Now it is enough. O Jew, if thou and I are slain, no other hand will ever take out that which we will shortly put in."
The casket and some other matters brought by them were now placed in the cavity which the jarl had dug, and the covering was done with care and a removing of surface traces. Then Ulric turned to look upon the altar.