She swung her gaze around. Kit continue staring at Malcolm for another long moment, then bit out, "Yes. And now I see why." Then he met Margo's gaze. "The gate doesn't reopen for five days. If it reopens. The string's disintegrating fairly rapidly. I'd be very surprised if it opens more than once or twice more before failing completely.

"Kynan Rhys Gower is still at large. The indigenous people in this region are being encouraged to capture and turn him in. Portuguese search parties are out hunting him. The traders are convinced you're a witch, one of them saw that damned balloon of yours seven weeks ago and now they have your `devilish' equipment as further damning proof.

"They'll expect us," he nodded to Malcolm, "to examine you for witchcraft. Given the circumstances, there's only one verdict possible. They'll expect us to proceed quickly with the execution. We're outnumbered twenty-five to two and they're heavily armed. More so than I'd feared."

"And there's a ninety percent chance," Malcolm added heavily, "that if we miss the next cycle of the gate, Kit will shadow himself before it reopens the next time. It's possible he'll shadow himself as it is."

Margo just covered her face with her hands. "You shouldn't have come," she whispered brokenly. "You shouldn't have risked it. I'm sorry. I'm not worth it, not even close to worth it "

Kit lifted a hand, hesitated, then touched her hair. She glanced up, eyes brimming in the lamp light. He managed a pained smile. "Did you actually transfer those damned diamonds to Goldie's worthless piece of property?"

The ghost of a smile flickered into being. "I sure did." Then her smile crumpled. "But Koot's dead and everything's gone to ruin. It's my fault! I screwed up the amount of fuel we needed. We ran out bucking the headwinds. We had to raft out and Koot contracted malaria of all things trying to get downriver, and we ran out of food, then that storm broke up our raft..." She drew a deep breath. "I'm not making excuses. I'm to blame for all of this. You were right. I'm not cut out to be a scout."

Kit traced an ugly bruise on her cheek. "Don't tell me you're giving up so soon?"

Her chin quivered. "I-I wanted to ask for a second chance, but I-I screwed up so bad, I-"

"Promise me you'll go back up time and study. Provided we get out of this mess alive," he added with a wry smile. "You get those college degrees, okay? We'll talk about it then."

She started crying again, silently, desperately. Malcolm wanted to hold her, but left that to Kit, who pulled her close and rocked her in his arms. Malcolm's throat thickened. He'd never seen such an expression on Kit's face. Eventually she sniffed and pulled back a step. "Okay. We'll talk about that when we get there," she said, sounding exactly like her grandfather. "But first, we have to get out of here. Any suggestions?"

"None whatsoever," Kit said cheerfully. "I generally make things up as I go along. Although for the sake of verisimilitude, I would suggest you scream, very loudly and most convincingly, right about now."

Margo didn't even hesitate. She screamed, a piercing sound of agony that raised fine hairs on the back of Malcolm's neck. Then she whimpered loudly enough to be heard through the closed door. They waited for a moment, then Kit signaled to her again. She let out another gawdawful cry and started sobbing.

Kit said quietly, "I'm sorry, but Malcolm has to keep this." He took Malcolm's cassock and handed it back. Then he stepped to the door and opened it.

"Governor Salazar, whether this girl is witch or not, I have still not decided in my heart," Kit said. "But the girl has been badly brutalized." Reproach darkened his voice. "God does not approve of such violence against the weaker sex. Worse, you have left her naked and starving. We may chastise the body for the sake of the soul, but we are still Christian men. Bring the poor child a blanket, clothing, something hot to eat. Let her pray and sleep. Tomorrow we will examine her further."

He lifted his hand in a Latin benediction, then motioned to Malcolm. Margo bit her lips as he turned to leave. He said with his eyes, Hold on, kid. Just hold on.. Then the traders brought a coarse shirt, a blanket, and a mug of soup. Kit saw to it that she was clothed and wrapped in the blanket, watched her finish the soup,, then consented to lock her in again for the night.

Then-and only then--did he and Malcolm finish the "confessions" they had begun. Neither of them was in any mood for it, but the charade had to be maintained at all costs. The confessions proved astonishingly petty, yet gave great insight into the factions which split the isolated men of Lourenco Marques.

"The tradesmen," Sergeant Joao Braz complained bitterly, "act like they are in Lisbon, not this forsaken wilderness! The miller demands his twentieth part for grinding flour. What will he spend it on? And the husbands are lazy! All they do is stand around and watch their chickens scratch in the dirt while we guard their miserable lives ... ."

The Basque baker, Xanti, ranted against the soldiers, who treated everyone in the community like peasants, putting on arrogant airs and shirking their duty. "Do they stand night watch? Ha! They sleep through night watch, unless a rat runs over their feet. Then they scream like women and swear that Satan himself is loose in the town. Why, that idiot Mauricio even shot at a shadow at three o'clock in the morning! Woke up the whole town ..."

The governor complained bitterly that the men were slovenly, undisciplined, and lazy. Nicolau the cooper's confession was one endless tirade against everyone and everything in Lourenco Marques. "The town would not even exist but for me! My barrels hold the water this fort was built to supply for the ships bound for India! Without me, Lourenco Marques would still be a stretch of mud held by devil-worshipping heathens!"

The blacksmith, too, had his complaints. "Three times in the past month, that idiot of a cooper has broken the handles of his drawing knives. What does he do with them, to break the handles? And the governor demands more guns, then complains at the price when I tell him what it will cost and how long it will take my assistant and myself to make even the simplest..."

The farmers hated the sailors with a Basque passion. "We work hard," Mikolas cried, "feeding those lazy louts. What do they do all day? They sit by the water, eat ten times what any other man would consume in a day, and sing bawdy songs while they make rope! Why do ships need more rope? Every time a ship comes, there are miles of rope coiled on deck, and God preserve you if you so much as step on one little pile ..."

You know, Malcolm thought quietly while the Basque ranted, it wouldn't take much to set these men at one another's throats. Malcolm filed the thought away and finished hearing their bitter complaints, then doled out suitable penance for their sins, expressing shock and dismay when he learned that half the men in town didn't possess so much as a simple rosary. Malcolm might have felt guilty about deceiving these men, but for one fact. Cold rage filled him every time memory revealed Margo crouched naked in that filthy corner, ready to fight off her attackers.

As for Kit ...

Malcolm glanced at the blanket separating his "confessional" from Kit's. He would deal with Kit when they came to that quarrel. No sense setting himself up for more worry than he already had. They would either get out alive or they wouldn't. Only then could he and Kit settle the matter between them.

Kit's stony silence the rest of the evening didn't bode well at all.

Kit had to plausibly stretch their "examination" of the so-called witch over five full days. He lay awake far into the night, trying to put out of his mind what these men had done to Margo. If he let himself dwell on it, he'd never be able to think straight. He knew he ought to consult Malcolm, but was too deeply angry to speak to him. It's my fault she's pulled this stunt,' Malcolm had said.