I interrupted and asked my Roman whether he hadn't been well treated. And he turned on me and said—almost in those very words—that he had—he'd been too well treated. He'd been a hardworking artisan and Christian all his life and it didn't come natural to him to loll around on cushions and play with children's toys. He ended up by saying that if I gave him another test he'd ram it down my throat.
Well, after something like that, I was only too glad to get rid of them. I told Myers so and we started up the stairs. Just at that moment there was the most curious shiver—decidedly unpleasant—and we all suddenly found ourselves back at the foot of the stairs again. Myers turned white as a sheet.
He gasped. "Good God, I didn't think it would start this quickly!"—And I don't mind telling you, dear Diary, that for a second even I felt a touch of fear.
We hurried, all eighteen of us, across the darkened campus and up to his laboratory. Twice more those curious shivers threw us back a step or two in time, and we had to do things over.
"It's cracking faster," said Myers, and herded my Romans into an area marked off by chalk lines on the floor. Myers took me by the arm.
"Listen," he said, "and listen good, because I don't have time to say it twice. I've got the sixteen Romans waiting in a trigger area. There's a trip mechanism that will throw them back to their own time the minute there's an opening for them to fit into. I'm going to stay here and operate the machine. I want you to ride the time-grapple back to the Arena and see that the others—you said they were Roundheads?—and nobody but they get into the time-grapple for transference back to their own time."
"Me?" I said. "Into the time-grapple. I certainly will not—" Before I could finish he seized me by the shoulders and pushed me into the time-grapple area.
The moment I stumbled across the line the laboratory faded around me. I felt a moment of nausea, and then I was swinging, unsupported and apparently invisible above the royal box in the arena. When I leaned down I was right on a level with Nero himself. I took one horrified look at him, gasped, and turned away.
I looked down in the arena, and saw immediately why Myers had sent me back. The time-grapple would, of course, have to get the Roundheads all on one grab and it would be impossible until they were all close together. I knew that, back in the laboratory, Myers could see me apparently standing on the floor in front of him and his devilish machine. He could also, of course, see Nero and part of the Royal box. I would have to direct him to the Roundheads when the time came.
I looked out in the arena, and groaned. The door to the cells was just opening and the Roundheads were filing out onto the field. The gladiators were already out; the Roundheads were too far dispersed for the time-grapple to grab them.