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the inflection of inquiry. “Foggy tea wash?” Something like that. Simon thought about the possible punishment. In a primitive society it could well be death, which put a very high premium on any possibility of escape.
    He felt his way round the cellar, inch by inch. The walls were of brick, the bricks smaller than the ones he was accustomed to, but very firmly cemented in. He broke a fingernail on one. Brick, and then wood. A door: That was something. He went over it, inch by inch. It was of heavy timber, barred with iron. He found an iron lock, a keyhole, a heavy metal ring. After a long time of trying, he had to accept the fact that it was either locked or bolted on the other side, and that no one short of a superman was going to get it open from here.
    The only other interruption in the brick was the hatch to the outside, through which they had been thrown. That was of heavy timber, too, and as firmly bolted. The glimmer of light round the edges was wafer-thin. The increasing stuffiness showed how little even of air it admitted.
    During his exploration, the man with him hadstayed where he was but with occasional bursts of unintelligible speech. “Foggy tea wash” occurred several times, still with the note of inquiry. He was asking if Simon was a foggy tea wash. Foggy, or fuggy? It came to him suddenly, a recollection of a hot afternoon and old Gargoyle (George Argyle, junior Latin master) droning on. Fugitivus —a runaway. More specifically, a runaway slave!
    Things fell together. He was in the past, all right, and within a few hundred years he could place just when. Roman Britain.
    In a fit of enthusiasm he answered, or tried to. “Non fugitivus sum.” That produced blankness, followed by a meaningless flood. He tried “Homo liber,” to which the silence was longer still. Respectful, or simply uncomprehending? A renewed surge of what must be Latin was no help. Simon gave up, wishing he had paid more attention to the Gargoyle’s soporific nasal tones. The one thing clear was that the man with him was almost certainly a Roman slave and naturally assumed that he was a slave, too, and a runaway. A runaway who had broken into a tomb and eaten the food meant to sustain the deceased lady while she got ready for her crossing of the Styx. Hiscompanion had another go, but Simon felt altogether too depressed to attempt an answer.
    Much later the hatch was briefly opened and bread was thrown in—a couple of small loaves—and a leather flask containing water. He was able to see that the day was almost gone and, in the shadowy evening light, that his companion was a small, thin, undernourished man with a straggly grey beard. Simon picked up his loaf from the floor and wolfed it, and the pair of them shared the water in the flask. More time dragged by; he slept and woke and slept again. Then the hatch was pulled open again, and this time it was morning.
    They were shouted at from above. The old man heaved himself out, and Simon took the tip and followed suit. The same brawny individual was in charge of the party and supervised their tying up. A rope went round the neck and secured both wrists and ankles; you could hobble, but no more. He felt some relief about that. Surely no one would bother to tie someone up in order to chop his head off?
    The house, he could now see, was a typical Roman villa out of history books. An open cart stood close by, with a couple of oxen between theshafts. They were made to scramble in at the back, and a guard jumped in with them. Then the high back was slammed up, there were cries and the crack of a whip, and the cart rolled off.
    It was an interminable journey, in discomfort which gradually turned to agony. There was a slight relief when they turned onto a paved road, but it was rapidly lost in the new pain of cramp. Simon tried to struggle up to a squatting position, but a shout from the guard, leaning against the side of the cart, put a stop to that. He