"I am with thee," said another tall viking. "I have considered this matter, and I think it is also the mind of the jarl. He may not go with us, but his secret will is that we go speedily without him. Then will he truthfully say to the Romans that he did not command us to go. I will no longer be shut up in this place as if I were one of the beasts in yonder dens waiting for my turn to be made a bloody show of. I am a free warrior, not a caged wild creature. I will go to the sea."
Other voices were raised in strong accord with his, and their talk went on until their minds were on fire and their purposes had become firmly fixed, for they were men of experience and of great courage. The jarl came not among them at this time, for he was even then at the temple gate inquiring as to the right method of obtaining cattle for his sacrifices to Jehovah. A servitor went into one of the inner courts and brought out a dealer who had bullocks at hand, and this man began to name prices, counting them in shekels of the temple.
"What know I of shekels?" exclaimed Ulric.
"Thou dost not need to know," broke in a voice behind him. "O jarl, I am here. He asketh thee too much. Let me attend to this matter. Well for thee that thou hast it in thy mind to offer sacrifices to the living Jehovah!"
"O my friend!" exclaimed the jarl. "Glad am I of thy coming! This charge is thine."
"Who art thou that meddlest with another man's affair?" demanded the dealer angrily.
"Silence, thou!" was the peremptory reply. "I am Ben Ezra, the interpreter of Caius of Thessalonica, and this is the captain of his guard and of his Saxons. Beware that thou deal not fraudulently with any of his people lest I have a hand laid upon thee. I am in my right in this matter."
"That do I now admit," replied the dealer in a changed manner, "but I charge him not too much. Come thou and see the cattle."
But the prices he shortly named were less than the half of his former asking.