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fact it had reached Watkin, who pronounced himself no expert on what the ancients had made for themselves to drink out of, only on what they had written as a result.  He said that Cawley was the one to whose knowledge and experience they should all bow, and attempted to give the pot to him.
    ‘I said,’ he repeated, ‘yours was the knowledge and experience to which we should bow.  Oh, for heaven’s sake, take your hands off your ears and have a look at the thing.’
    Gently, but firmly, he drew Cawley’s right hand from his ear, explained the situation to him once again, and handed him the pot.  Cawley gave it a cursory but clearly expert examination.
    ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘about two hundred years old, I would think.  Very rough.  Very crude example of its type.  Utterly without value, of course.’
    He put it down peremptorily and gazed off into the old minstrel gallery, which appeared to anger him for some reason.
    The effect on Sarah was immediate.  Already discouraged, she was thoroughly downcast by this.  She bit her lip and threw herself back against her chair, feeling once again thoroughly out of place and childish.  Her father gave her a warning look about misbehaving, and then apologised for her again.
    ‘Well, Buxtehude,’ he hurried on to say, ‘yes, good old Buxtehude.  We’ll have to see what we can do.  Tell me...’
    ‘Young lady,’ interrupted a voice, hoarse with astonishment, ‘you are clearly a magician and enchantress of prodigious powers!’
    All eyes turned to Reg, the old show-off.  He was gripping the pot and staring at it with manic fascination.  He turned his eyes slowly to the little girl, as if for the first time assessing the power of a feared adversary.
    ‘I bow to you,’ he whispered.  ‘I, unworthy though I am to speak in the presence of such a power as yours, beg leave to congratulate you on one of the finest feats of the conjurer’s art it has been my privilege to witness!’
    Sarah stared at him with widening eyes.
    ‘May I show these people what you have wrought?’ he asked earnestly.
    Very faintly she nodded, and he fetched her formerly precious, but now sadly discredited, pot a sharp rap on the table.
    It split into two irregular parts, the caked clay with which it was surrounded falling in jagged shards on the table.  One side of the pot fell away, leaving the rest standing.
    Sarah’s eyes goggled at the stained and tarnished but clearly recognisable silver college salt cellar, standing jammed in the remains of the pot.
    ‘Stupid old fool,’ muttered Cawley.
    After the general disparagement and condemnation of this cheap parlour trick had died down -- none of which could dim the awe in Sarah’s eyes -- Reg turned to Richard and said, idly:  ‘Who was that friend of yours when you were here, do you ever see him?  Chap with an odd East European name.  Svlad something.  Svlad Cjelli.  Remember the fellow?’
    Richard looked at him blankly for a moment.
    ‘Svlad?’ he said.  ‘Oh, you mean Dirk.  Dirk Cjelli.  No.  I never stayed in touch.  I’ve bumped into him a couple of times in the street but that’s all.  I think he changes his name from time to time.  Why do you ask?’

CHAPTER 5

    High on his rocky promontory the Electric Monk continued to sit on a horse which was going quietly and uncomplainingly spare.  From under its rough woven cowl the Monk gazed unblinkingly down into the valley, with which it was having a problem, but the problem was a new and hideous one to the Monk, for it was this -- Doubt.
    He never suffered it for long, but when he did, it gnawed at the very root of his being.
    The day was hot; the sun stood in an empty hazy sky and beat down upon the grey rocks and the scrubby, parched grass.  Nothing moved, not even the Monk.  But strange things were beginning to fizz in its brain, as they did from time to time when a piece of data became misaddressed as it passed through its input buffer.
    But then the Monk