The story begins the day before a planned backpacking/prospecting trip to Mexico. Mark, the primary character, is having difficulty falling to sleep. His mind is wandering back to a trip he and his wife had made to Israel two years previously when sleep finally comes. He awakes at the oar of a first century slave ship off the coast of Caesarea. After a lashing and violent confrontation with the ship's company he is able to escape by jumping overboard...