"Hael! O land of the South!" shouted Tostig the Red. "Thou hast mountains as tall as are those of the North. But this is a bay, a harbor, not a fiord."
"What sayest thou, Ben Ezra?" asked Ulric of the watcher on the mast.
"Row in!" replied the Jew. "There is no other keel in this haven and it is a good one. I see no sail nor any boat seaward. This is Africa, and a city is on the shore, but the fire was at the head of the bay. There are rocks ahead. Row around them."
"I see them; a great ledge," said Ulric. "Broken and sharp-toothed are those rocks, and they would wreck any keel that should strike upon them. It is a place of wrecks."
The rowers rowed and _The Sword_ went on through a wide passage at the right of the ledge. Then she was in a great basin where many keels might ride at anchor, and before her and on either side of her lay the land.
There seemed but a gentle slope at the seashore. Beyond might be a plain for a few miles, and then, lifting their heads so high that they entered the dominions of the upper gods to be capped with ice and snow, were the many mountains. Into that upper land no man may enter, for the ice gods will freeze him and bury him in snow for his insolence.
It was all exceedingly beautiful, but the rowers now rowed slowly and all the other Saxons watched warily as _The Sword_ drew nearer what seemed a landing place, a structure of stonework builded far out into the harbor.
"Bring thy ship to yonder wharf," counseled Sigurd. "No men are to be seen, but there are walls and temples and houses. This may be a town of the magicians of Africa. Beware of them, Ulric the Jarl."
"I would I knew who kindled the light," said Ulric, thoughtfully. "If we had sailed toward it in the dark we had perished on that ledge."
"Thereon are fragments of wrecks," said Sigurd. "The breakers there are high."
So said other of the seamen, but _The Sword_ was now making fast to the stone jetty, and Ben Ezra was already out upon it walking shoreward, with his scimiter drawn. He seemed like a younger man. But he was not to go alone, for closely behind him hurried Lysias with his bow, and Knud the Bear.
"Here burned the fire," said Ulric, a few moments later, pointing at a heap of ashes near the head of the jetty. "There hath been much burning of wood at this place."