"Such as how it happened that my 'copter threw a vane just after we
sighted the place?"
Retch did not answer.
"Seemed as though somebody shot at us."
"Oh hell no! The loss of the vane was accidental."
"Accidents like that can happen but they usually don't. I checked the
ship before we took off." Parker turned silent. There was no proof that
the wrecking of the 'copter had been anything but an accident. "What do
you expect to find on this island?"
"I told you--"
"Just before the 'copter started down, Miss Valdar was yakking about how
we were all going to be rich," Parker interrupted.
The glance Retch gave Mercedes had no love in it. "Sometimes she's got
her mouth open when she ought to have it shut."
* * * * *
Mercedes was silent. "I see," Parker said. "When you chartered my ship,
you told me you were a scientist and that you wanted to investigate
certain phenomena on this island. You said your investigation would take
only a few hours. I was to fly you here and wait for you. You said you
might want me to fly you back to the mainland, or might not, depending
on what you found here. Is this correct?"
"Certainly," Retch answered. "I'm sorry you lost your ship but the
insurance will take care of it."
"Insurance will take care of the 'copter but not of my neck. _Are_ you a
scientist?"
"Of course. Didn't I tell you--"
"What kind of a scientist are you?"
"I--ah--What do you mean?"
"What's your specialty? Are you a biologist, a physicist, or what?"
"I--"
"I don't believe you are a scientist at all. You don't talk like one."
"Damn it, I told you what I am and that's what I am!" Retch's face
showed sullen and his hand moved toward the gun. Parker tensed. Retch
stopped the movement of his hand. He glared at the big pilot.
"Okay," Parker said. "It doesn't make any difference anyhow." He resumed
paddling.
The sun slid down the western sky. Retch and Mercedes huddled in the
front end of the raft and whispered to each other. From time to time,
the woman glanced at Parker. He paid no attention to her.
The sea was calm. In the distance, a school of flying fish skittered
over the surface. A dozen gulls played near the surface. A high-riding
fin cut the water. Shark, sensing food.
The sun reached the horizon and wallowed in the sea like a fat, round
shining pig on fire.
Mercedes screamed, pointed, jerked a terror-stricken face toward Parker.
"Beel! Beel!" She scuttled across the raft, threw herself into his arms.
"Look, Beel, look!"
Terror and panic almost beyond understanding were in her words.
Parker looked where she was pointing. His heart climbed up into his
mouth and threatened to choke him. He had thought he was shock-proof,
that nothing could jar him. But here was something that made his mind
reel.
_Walking across the water toward the raft were three men._
Clad in knee-length breeches, wearing cloaks, the three men looked as if
they had just stepped out of the 17th century. Two wore big,
broad-brimmed hats, the third had a handkerchief wrapped around his
head. He also had a wooden leg and he stalked across the surface of the
sea with all the sureness he might have had with concrete under him. He
carried a curved cutlass in one hand. The other two men were armed with
swords, in scabbards. In addition, heavy, clumsy-looking pistols were
thrust into sashes at their belts.
They looked like men out of a nightmare--or like pirates out of the
olden days; swash-buckling buccaneers who had somehow managed to survive
their proper period in history and to live into the 20th century.
"Ghosts!" Mercedes screamed. "Devils! They've come up out of hell
because of our sins!" She wrapped her arms around Parker's neck. "Save
me, Beel, save me!"
Parker caught her wrists, jerked her arms loose from his neck, and rose
quickly to his feet. He hoped fervidly that his eyes had been deceiving
him and that standing up would cause this mirage to disappear.
His eyes continued to deceive him. The three men did not disappear. They
continued to walk across the water toward the raft. They moved with the
sureness of men who know where they are going.
Behind them, suddenly outlined against the fat sun that was wallowing in
the sea, rocky, grim, and forbidding, the mysterious island was now
visible. It had reappeared. They had found it.
Three men coming from it had found them.
The shark found the three men.
Parker saw the triangular fin cut through the water toward them. Like a
speed boat taking off on a race, the fin gathered momentum.
The three men saw it coming.
"Ho!" one yelled.
"A shark!" the second said.
"Have at him, boys!" the third shouted.
* * * * *
The shark charged them. Drawing their swords, the three men executed a
nimble dance on the surface of the sea. They thrust downward--their
swords entering the water with no difficulty whatsoever although their
feet did not enter it--drew them back dripping red. They skipped lightly
out of the way of the wounded and infuriated monster.
"Zounds!"
"Chop the sea pig down!"
"Carve his heart out!"
Old battle cries rang in the air as they fought the shark. Blood colored
the surface of the sea.
The wounded shark suddenly took its death blow. It dived, was gone from
sight, then broke the surface a hundred yards away. It beat the water
into foam, threshing out its life.
With pleased interest, the three men watched the shark die. Dipping
their blades into the sea to clean the blood from them, they wiped them
dry on their pants legs.
Again they moved toward the raft.
Parker's hand went to the pistol inside his leather jacket. He loosed it
in its holster but did not draw it.
Mercedes moaned and covered her eyes. At the other end of the boat,
Retch had risen to his feet.
Bracing himself, Bill Parker waited for--whatever was to happen. Out of
the corner of his eye, he saw Retch slowly drawing his gun.
"Damn it, Retch, put that gun away!" Parker shouted. "Don't shoot until
you know what the hell is going on."
Retch turned, the gun visible in his hand. "What the hell--" Retch
didn't put the gun away. He lifted it. Parker found himself staring into
the muzzle.
"Get your hands up!" Retch snarled the words. "Mercedes, get that gun
out of his holster. Get your goddamned hands up or I'll blow your
blasted head off!"
The last was spoken to Parker as the dazed pilot tried to understand
what had happened. He could hardly believe his own eyes. Automatically
he lifted his hands. Mercedes slid past him, got behind him, taking no
chances on getting between him and Retch's gun. He felt her fingers go
inside his jacket. Expertly she lifted the gun from its holster.
"Toss me the gun!" Retch said. He caught the weapon the woman tossed
toward him, glanced at Parker. "You thought I was going to start
shooting at _them_?" He gestured toward the three approaching men. "You
made a slight mistake." The grin on his face was wolfish.
"What the hell have I got into?"
"You'll find out, if you live long enough," Retch said. "Just behave
yourself and do as you're told and maybe you'll stay alive." Again the
wolfish grin showed on his face but under the grin, the words were harsh
with meaning.
"Ho, Johnny!" the three men were drawing near the raft. "Ho, Johnny
Retch! What kind of a flying ship is this that you have brought back
with you?"
Retch turned to the three men. "Gotch! Peg-leg! Masterville!" Retch
greeted them as old friends. The one he had called Gotch had spoken. All
three of them stared at the raft and its occupants. Mercedes drew bold,
appreciative stares. Parker got blank looks. Standing lightly and easily
on the water, the three men surveyed the raft with doubtful contempt.
"Does this thing fly through the air like the Jez--" Gotch caught
himself. "It looks to me as if it were more fit for sailing on a mill
pond back in Devon."
"This is not the ship that flies through the air, that ship was wrecked.
This is a rubber boat that it carried."
"Wrecked?" Gotch spoke. "But where does that leave us?"
"Everything has been taken care of," Retch spoke quickly. "You can
always trust Johnny Retch to have two strings for his bow."
"Hmmmm. And who is this?" Gotch gestured toward Parker.
"The pilot of the flying ship that was wrecked," Retch answered.
"Ummmm. And what are we going to do with him?" Gotch glanced around
toward the still floundering and dying shark as if he regretted their
haste in disposing of what might have been a handy scavenger. "Um." He
moved around the raft and stood close to Parker, staring at him. The
sword in his hands still showed faint traces of red from the blood of
the shark.
"We do not need any more men on the island!" Lifting his blade, Gotch
glared at Parker.
"Do you, per'aps, need women?" Mercedes spoke quickly. Gotch turned his
eyes on her. As he looked, some of the anger seemed to go out of him.
"Perhaps what you need on the island are more women," Mercedes said. She
smiled boldly.
* * * * *
Gotch broke into a grin. "But definitely, we need more women, if they
are like you."
"Hey, lay off of her, she belongs to me!" Retch spoke violently.
"Come, let us pull the boat to the island," Peg-leg spoke quickly. "We
have too many things to do to stand waiting here."
Grumbling, Gotch allowed himself to be persuaded to get in front of the
raft and join the other men in pulling it.
Not until then did Parker dare to breathe. "Thanks," he spoke to
Mercedes.
"It was nothing, Beel. Anyone could have done it."
"Thanks, anyhow," Parker said. "But what have we got ourselves into
here?"
"I do not know for sure, Beel. Johnny, he like me, and he ask me to come
along. He say we will both get reech--"
"Shut up!" Retch spoke.
Parker, sitting in the raft, watched the three men tow it toward the
shore. He watched their feet. Where they stepped, the water seemed to
grow firm. Pirates, cut-throats, killers, they certainly were. But added
to that was the equally obvious fact that they could walk on water. In
all history, Parker had only heard of one man who could do that, and he
hadn't been a man, but a God.
Ahead of them, the island loomed in the sunset; a long strip of white,
sandy beach; behind it a thick growth of trees; behind the trees the
rocky central mass of the island rising up into the sky. Off to the
right, Parker caught a glimpse of a wreck that lay against rocks jutting
from the shore. He stared at it. Unless his eyes were deceiving him, it
was the wreck of a Spanish galleon, a ship that belonged to the days
when Spain had been draining the gold and silver and jewels of the new
world into her coffers.
The men stopped, stared uneasily at the shore. Parker could make out two
men barely visible between the beach and the grove of trees.
"Rozeno and Ulnar!" Gotch spoke. "Watching us." His lips curled and his
hand went automatically to the hilt of the sword he was wearing. "Some
day I will slit the throats of that priest and that Indian." 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."