"Get together, get together!" I cried—but of course they couldn't hear me as long as I was in the time-grapple field.
Just then Nero spoke up next to my ear, and I could hear him, because of the auditory equipment built into the field.
"My dear," he was saying petulantly to a thickly powdered, fat-faced woman beside him. "Look at those Christians! And Lictus promised me that I shouldn't be disappointed. Look how sober and dull they are. They usually come on with their faces lit up, almost exalted."
"Perhaps," said the woman, "this group doesn't feel so much like being martyred. Maybe they'll run around a bit more."
I could stand no more of this, and signaled Myers to move the field down toward the Roundheads. The idiots were still too far apart to be picked up and were talking together in that odd, seventeenth century English.
"What think you, Sergeant," said one fresh-faced youngster, "are we to be put to trial by those armored demons, yonder?"
"It may be, John," replied the individual addressed as Sergeant.
The young man sighed. "I feel the hand of the Lord strong upon me," he said. "None the less, had I but my claymore—"
"Fie, John Stowe," reproved the Sergeant. "Let not your mind dwell upon earthly matters. Look rather upon yon armed demons, with a mind to marking their true natures. See yon demon with the chased shield, which is surely Pride. And the other beside him, whom, by his lean and envious face I clearly read as Covetousness."
And the Sergeant went on giving names to the various gladiators, so that the other Roundheads became interested and drifted over. I was beginning to have hopes of snatching them up immediately when the Sergeant wound up his little discussion.