What did you do to her in Rome, my friend? You seduced her, hurt her, drove her away ...

"I trusted you, Malcolm."

That hurt almost as much as what Margo had suffered

Malcolm's breathing told him the younger man hadn't fallen asleep, either. Good. He hoped Malcolm Moore spent a night in hell. Kit turned over with a creak of bed ropes and presented his back to the guide.

"Get some sleep," he said roughly. "You'll need it."

Malcolm didn't answer.

At two o'clock in the morning, Kit rose and lit a lamp, then kicked Malcolm into wakefulness. The guide stirred under dirty blankets and groaned, then struggled to his feet. His eyes showed the strain of sleeplessness. Malcolm faced him squarely, however, neither flinching nor apologizing. Kit grunted "Time to wake these sinners up for night office. I want them half asleep and off balance for the next five days."

Malcolm only nodded. He vanished outside to search for the fort's alarm bell. Kit heard Malcolm speak with the night watch, then the bell sang out a dirge which brought men stumbling out of the houses to the fort. They clutched weapons a little wildly as they searched for danger.

"What is it?" one of them cried, darting frightened glances into the darkness. "What danger threatens, Father?"

"The danger of damnation and hell everlasting," Kit said sternly. "The Evil One has been at work among you, by your own admission. God has sent us to save your souls. All of you, put away your guns and crossbows. Kneel for Matins."

The men of Lourengo Marques exchanged dismayed glances in the dim light from Kit's lamp. Then, with a low muttering and a shuffling of feet, they knelt in the darkness: Kit began Matins in high Latin, speaking out the service in a slow, rolling way that spun out the observance as long as he could stretch it. Then, just for good measure, Malcolm repeated the whole thing. The traders yawned and dozed until Kit switched them awake with a small stick and an admonishing glare.

They finally allowed the bewildered Portuguese to get off their knees and stretch. But when the traders headed for the gate to return to their warm beds, Kit called them back. "My sons, think you that you return to bed now? Lauds must now be read before you may sleep safely in the knowledge that you are saving your souls."

When the military governor complained bitterly that his men needed to sleep, Kit held up a hand. "Until the matter of these witches is settled and I know that the souls of my new flock are safe from harm, I must ask that you abide by my decree. Kneel, then."

In the flickering lamplight, dismay showed plainly in swarthy faces. "My sons," Kit said gently, "too long have you been living ungodly lives. Have you considered that your own wickedness has brought the witches and the devil himself among you?"

Several of the men crossed themselves fearfully. No one else complained as they knelt to hear Lauds. By the time this second service had ended, dawn had begun to creep across the sky. Kit let them go, enjoining them to sleep with prayers upon their lips, then stumbled back to his own wretched bed. Malcolm glanced once at Margo's prison, then followed. They slept for exactly three hours, then roused the traders at six o'clock and conducted the Prime service. Only then did they allow the traders to eat breakfast. Kit ordered that the poor girl be fed, as well, then faced his uneasy new "flock."

"I would know what manner of devilish things these witches brought among you. Father Xabat and I will examine the evidence for what we may find of the Evil One's presence."

He and Malcolm made a great show of examining the wreckage of the raft with its PVC gridwork, the transparent Filmar and ripstop nylon, the medical kit with its shiny foil packets and brightly colored pills, and the water purifying equipment which had washed ashore in the wreckage.

"And was this all?" Kit asked worriedly.

"No, Father," Sergeant Braz answered. "There were strange, devil-made guns which we cannot make sense of and even more frightening things."

They brought out an M-1 carbine, a beautiful .458 Winchester that must have belonged to Koot van Beek, and a stained leather bag containing Margo's ATLS and personal log. Kit and Malcolm exclaimed to one another in Latin, made worried sounds, conferred at length, took apart the "devil" guns to see what might be inside, and admitted bafflement over the strange equipment.

Kit finally announced Tierce service, which ate up a good bit of time, then returned to examining the "evidence" until time for Sext. After that, he questioned each of the traders closely about everything he had seen and done and felt and thought during the past six weeks. That took them to None service, which he and Malcolm dragged out nicely.

They had just finished None when a disturbance outside the fort brought a shout from one of the traders.

"The search parties are returning! Open the gate!"

Kit and Malcolm exchanged glances, then hurried after the soldiers who ran to open the fort's high wooden gates.

Kynan Rhys Gower was a strong swimmer. But when the raft broke up, throwing him into the water, something heavy caught him a grazing blow across the temple, stunning him. He floundered in the breakers, swept away from the wreckage by a powerful southerly current. Kynan managed to keep his face above water and let the sea carry him, too dazed to struggle and wise enough to marshall his strength before trying for shore.

Lightning flares showed him the curve of Delagoa Bay and the wretched little settlement he'd first seen seven weeks previously. The current swept him past it, inexorably southward. By the time he'd recovered enough to move his arms and legs against the current, Kynan estimated he'd been swept several miles south of the settlement on the wide bay-which meant Margo and Koot were trapped north of it, on the wrong side of the bay to reach the gate.

Kynan struck out for shore, wincing slightly at pulled muscles in his shoulder, and finally groped his way onto a rocky beach. He pulled himself on hands and knees above the line of crashing breakers, then collapsed to catch his breath. Rain pelted his back. He hadn't eaten a proper meal in days, felt dizzy and weak from hunger and his struggle with the sea.

Am I going to die here? And where am I, really? he wondered bleakly. Africa, Margo had said, but Kynan had only the haziest idea where Africa was-somewhere far south of Wales-and he hadn't known how to interpret the glowing chart she'd shown him on her "computer." He knew the men in the bay settlement were Portuguese. Kynan shivered. No love was lost between Welshmen and Portuguese.

The other men who lived here ... The pictures Margo had shown him were difficult to credit. Black men in strange garments, carrying long, wicked spears he wouldn't have wanted to face one-on-one, not even on his best day. Which this clearly wasn't. Slowly Kynan sat up, squinting into the rain and dark wind. Lightning flares revealed the sea, lashing furiously at the coast.

As alone as he'd felt in the time station, the isolation he felt now paled that into insignificance. He was lost a century after his own time and five centuries before "TT-86" would exist, in a land where he looked nothing like the native people and where the only men born in Europe were his enemies. He had no food, no water, no weapons, and no way of reliably obtaining more. Without so much as a knife, he couldn't even make a bow to hunt game. Of course, he could probably find the gate again, if he stumbled around long enough looking for it.

Kynan grimaced. Never thought I would long to crawl back into hell ... .

Of course, he'd begun to doubt that TT-86 was hell over the past few weeks. He'd begun to change his mind about the girl, Margo, too. She was a young fool sometimes, but she had courage to match a warrior's. He didn't understand why she had left her grandfather's protection to hunt diamonds, any more than he understood the reasons any "'eighty-sixer" did anything, but he thought her grandsire would have been proud to see her on their journey down the river to the sea.