is will.

Cliff's first impulse was to fling himself out there with his cutlas
and hack a way to freedom for Vilma and himself, but cold reason
checked this folly. Such a course could end only in death. Motionless
he watched the scene before him, his brain frantically seeking a plan
with even a ghost of a chance of succeeding.

The gunpowder! There was enough of the stuff below to blast this
entire castle into the hell where it belonged! Hastily he retraced his
steps to the tunnel in which he had found the kegs, plucking the torch
from its niche in the wall as he passed it. He held it high above his
head as he examined the contents of the broken keg. Unmistakably
gunpowder!

Thrusting the cutlas beneath his belt, he clutched a handful of the
black dust. Then, crouching close to the floor, he drew an irregular
thread through the passageway toward the stairs. Once he returned for
more powder, but in a few minutes the job was done. At the foot of the
steps where the trail ended, he touched his torch to the black line
and watched a hissing spark snake its white-smoked way back toward the
powder kegs. An instant he watched it, then sprang up the stairs. He'd
have to move fast!

With a hideous howl he darted into the hall, his cutlas above his
head. Corio spun about--and it was his last living act. A single sweep
of the great blade sheared his head from his neck, sent it rolling
grotesquely along the floor. For three heart-beats the body stood with
a fountain of blood spurting from severed arteries; then it crashed.

Coolly Cliff leaned over the twitching cadaver, ignoring the bedlam on
the stairs, the horde sweeping down toward him, hurling aside the
waiting humans. He pried open clutching fingers, seized a twisted
silver instrument, and raised it to his lips.

* * * * *

The mass of undead were almost upon him, the murky light glinting on
menacing blades, when Cliff blew the first note. The note of sleep! He
tried again, hastily. And it was the right one!

At the doleful, soothing sound the undead halted in their tracks;
halted--and melted into nothingness before his eyes!

But now those other five in their robes of bloody red--they were
charging, and even though they were unarmed, Cliff felt a stab of
fear. They possessed powers beyond the human, powers a mortal could
not combat. He braced himself and waited.

At the bottom of the steps they stopped, ranging in a wide
half-circle