an." Gotch spat
into the sea.

"They're not causing any trouble," Peg-leg spoke.

"They're witches, by Gad!" Gotch answered. "They're warlocks, wizards."

"Father Rozeno is a very devout and holy man," Peg-leg said.

"He pretends to be a priest but he is more of a warlock than he is a
holy man. As for that Indian, if he ever gives me the chance--" Gotch
glared at the figures at the edge of the grove.

"Come on," Peg-leg said.

Mercedes contrived to move closer to Parker. "Beel, what are theese
theengs here? I do not understand them. I do not like them."

"Nor do I," Parker said.

A shiver passed over her.

"What's the matter, baby, you cold?" Retch grinned at her. "Don't worry
about it. We'll get you warmed up on the island."

Imperceptibly she again moved closer to Parker. "Beel, it ees not good."

"You got into this of your own free will."

"Yes, but I did not know that theengs like theese were going to 'appen.
I just thought--"

"Mercedes, if you open your mouth again, I'll knock your teeth down your
throat!" Retch said.

Mercedes was silent.

As they came in to the shore, the two men who had been visible on the
beach disappeared. Off to the left something else came into view. It was
a small cabin plane, wrecked there in what had apparently been an
attempt at a forced landing.

Before they reached the shore, the fat sun had wallowed itself out of
sight into the sea. In the dusk, the island looked like a vast, rocky
pinnacle thrust up out of the Pacific Ocean, or out of the ocean of
time--Parker couldn't tell which. Mysterious, silent, it waited in the
darkness like a vast sleeping monster on the surface of the sea, a
monster on which Spanish galleons and planes had been wrecked. Parker,
his nerves jumpy, halfway expected it to vanish beneath the surface
before they reached it.

But it didn't vanish. It remained fixed, solid, firm. When they stepped
from the raft, the sand under their feet was solid, the crunch of it
reassuring.

* * * * *

A breeze whispered through the trees. The island was quiet, too quiet.
It seemed to brood in the darkness. In the vast stillness that hung like
a pall over the place, the only sound was that of a bird, chittering
sleepily in the dark woods.

It was the most out-of-place sound Bill Parker had ever heard.

It seemed to affect the others. At the bird-sound they were suddenly
quiet, listening.

"To hell with it, it's nothing,