"O captain," said Ulric, "he who obeyeth a command doeth well. But if I return not with due speed know thou that I am slain, and inquire into that business."
"That will I do," said the officer; "but they who slay thee may indeed need an inquiry. I think it will not be entirely well with them."
The jarl answered not a word, but he had now upon his mind the things that had been told to him by Bar Abbas on their way, and he went down into the valley, walking rapidly.
"Before me is a trap," he said, "although it was not set for me, but for some other. I will now fall into it, and glad am I that I am so well prepared. This heavy, sharp-edged gladius is better than my light seax."
Even then the captain of the gate was replying to a question from the quaternion.
"The gladiator unarmed?" he exclaimed. "Do I not know how a sheath will cause a wrinkle of a robe to enlarge and stiffen? They who sent him are responsible, not thou or I."
The jarl went on a mile, it might be, and around him was the smoke of the everlasting burning of Hinnom and the smell from the untellable pollution. Here and there, also, he saw heaps of half-consumed offal in which many worms were crawling. This place was to all Jews the picture and symbol of the punishment of the wicked after death. Not many wayfarers were at any time to be encountered here, for all men knew that it was a favorite haunt of evil spirits, of demons, and of robbers.
Nevertheless, as the jarl looked forward through the unpleasant clouding of smoke he exclaimed, aloud:
"They come! Yonder is Abbas himself, and with him are four men. They ride horses. I will wait until they dismount, but woe to me if so much as one of them shall escape."