This made him very angry, but on speaking of it to his foster-brother, Axel Hvide,--afterwards Bishop Absolon,--he found that the feeling that he lacked the courage of a warrior was general. This contempt made him so ashamed that from that time on he faced danger bravely and was never again known to turn back from any risk. Though Axel became a bishop, he had begun life as a soldier and was throughout life bold and daring, a man who loved nothing better than to command a ship or to lead his men in an assault against some fierce band of sea robbers. From his castle Axelborg, on the site of the later city of Copenhagen, he kept a keen lookout for these pirates and sought manfully to put an end to their plundering raids. The war against the Baltic heathens continued until 1168, when it ended in the capture of the town of Arcona, on the island of Rygen, and the destruction of the great temple of the Slavic god Svanteveit, whose monstrous four-headed image was torn down from its pedestal and burned in the presence of its dismayed worshippers. The taking of this temple is an event of much interest, for it was due to the shrewdness of a young Danish soldier, who circumvented the heathens by a clever stratagem. While the army lay encamped on the island beach, below the town of Arcona, this man noticed that the high cliffs on which the temple was built were honeycombed by many deep holes, which could not be seen from the ramparts above, but were quite visible from the beach below. One day it occurred to him that by making use of these holes he could roast the pagan worshippers out of their nests, and he arranged with some of his fellows to carry out his plan. Gathering such dry straw and small sticks as they could collect, the soldiers pretended to be playing at a game of pitch and toss, which if seen by the sentinels on the ramparts above would not seem suspicious to them. In this way they caused much of the straw and sticks to lodge in the holes in the steep cliff. Then, by using spears and stones for a ladder, one of them climbed for a distance up the steep rock wall and set fire to some of the inflammable rubbish in the holes. The effect was stupendous. The flames spread from hole to hole, creeping up the face of the rock until the wooden spikes and palings at its summit were in a blaze. This took place unseen by the pagans, who first took the alarm when they saw flames circling round the great mast from which floated the banner of their god. Before they could take any steps to extinguish the flames, and while they stood in a panic of apprehension, the Danes, headed by Bishop Absolon, rushed to the assault and succeeded in taking the town.