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. In the rapidly approaching darkness he finds himself treading in salt water, unable to see a shoreline and the ship slipping from view. The backpack, which had been left next to his bed, was looped over his arm as he left the ship now helps him to stay afloat.